


The End and Beyond

by TheLadyNina



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: Explicit Language, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-05-20 22:40:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLadyNina/pseuds/TheLadyNina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The infection hit 2 weeks ago, but now it seems like it is getting worse; a team of misfits must fight together through it, working together to survive.<br/>(based of an Rp with my good friend Tina)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Hotel

Two weeks have passed since the first documented infection.  
The so-called Green Flu, a highly transmittable virus which manifested itself as massively increased aggression and the loss of many higher brain functions within its victim, had spread throughout the United States of America with a speed only seen before in the European medieval plague. After many attempts from the Government to cover up the severity of the outbreaks throughout the country, the military had been called in to perform an immediate emergency evacuation in the city of Savannah, Georgia; after another outbreak of the Green Flu-virus had been confirmed.  
The evacuation was called within a moment’s notice and the deadline was mere 3 hours. That was now 2 hours and 54 minutes ago…

 

"Fuck. Fuckingfuckityfuckfuck. "  
A middle-aged man in a white suit was rushing down the streets, the smell of burning rubber still fresh in his mind, not to mention his anger of not having filled up on gas when he had the time , forcing him to run the last mile. "Fuck..!" he cursed, holding a hand to his badly bandaged chest  
It wasn't like the strong Georgian sun was making it any easier on anyone who tried to make their way on foot. The entire coast had been suffering from massive heat waves the last couple of days and temperatures had easily lingered around 38°C, if not higher.

A number of evacuation sites had been appointed in both radio and TV broadcasts, but only two of them were within reach of the man; some hotel and a mall, where the hotel was the closest of the two.  
"Goddammit..!" the man hissed, heading towards the hotel, god he hoped for air-condition, his suit was fine for the heat at most times, but whilst running? Not so much. He passed some people, but they just seemed to stand around in the distance. Not that he paid anybody any attention, he'd save his own ass way before anybody ells.  
It soon became apparent that he wasn't the only person having rushed to the hotel in the nick of time, as three other people appeared to be entering through the front doors. One even seemed to spot him across the parking lot, holding open the one large glass-door and waving for him to hurry. A distant, encouraging shout even sounded. "C'mon, hurry!"  
At this point the first few helicopters were already taking off above them.

He rushed inside, not even giving a thank you. He eyed the elevator but deemed it too slow before racing up the stairs - mildly annoyed when some black woman speed past him. It probably only served to annoy him even more as the two other people passed him too. One a white male, wearing what appeared to be a dirtied mechanics suit with the upper part tied around his hips and a trucker cap. The other a rather large, black man in some polo-shirt from, what he could only guess, was a local college.  
The latter though was quickly to fall behind again as they hurried up the many floors, loudly exclaiming his frustration about the evacuation center's location while he panted for air.  
He eyed the shirt slightly, football markings as far as he could tell, judging by the mans... Physical 'attributes' he certainly wasn't a player. 

"who the hell... Puts an evac center... On 30 flights of goddamn stairs.." the overweight man wheezed "well coach, maybe the helicopter... Maybe it's made of chocolate" the white clad man laughed as he panted, pleased by the other males surprised expression but even more with the displeased one that followed.  
It seemed like forever before they reached the last door that lead out to the roof. The woman and the young male was already there, the man shouting , asking if there was anyone there, while the woman chanted quietly to herself. "This is not happening. This is not happening.." whilst going in small circles.  
They had been met with nothing but a bare roof and the unforgiving, baking sun that blurred their vision of the last leaving helicopter in the distance.

"thought they were supposed to save our asses..!" the larger man sneered while catching his breath. The white suited man caught his own for a few moments before looking at the leaving helicopters "Looks like there's been a change of plans..." he sighed, still rather out of breath.  
"That whirlybird looks like it's headin' to the mall." The young man sounded, lifting his sun-bleached trucker cap a bit as he looked after it. "There's an evac center there. I could lead the way." He suggested in a friendly tone, looking around at the other three with a slight smile.  
"Helicopter" the man in the suit spoke, turning to look in the general direction "fucking hell.."  
"Gotta agree, les' follow 'em to the mall!" the larger man spoke, feeling determination fill him again.  
"I will call it what I like, fancy suit." Sounded the thick southern-accent. "Listen we should grab some weapons." The woman interrupted, while looking at them both, her eyes a little nervous as she spoke. "I work in the news and the news says we should -definitely- get some kind of weapons."  
"hey kid, let the grownups talk, 'kay?" the brown haired male spoke, walking over to take a left behind crowbar. He was sent a look from the young male. "Come on, now! Quarrelin' amongst ourselves ain't solvin' nothing." Walking back inside through the door, he grabbed a fireaxe from the wall after having smashed the safety glass with a rock. His eyes travelling down the staircase. "Anyway, I think the building's on fire. Maybe we should get movin'."

The brunette sighed, hating having to rely on complete strangers; he pushed himself in front of them, pushing a door opening leading to the floor, but stopped dead in his track from what he saw "Oh, this is unexpected"  
: "Holy--! Is that a zombie? Like a, like a-- 'ZOMBIE' zombie?!" The thick southern accent exclaimed right next to him, as the hick looked over his shoulder, still standing on the last step of the stairs.  
"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm killing them" the white clad man stepped forward, whacking an approaching zombie in the head with the crowbar. As the zombies dead body slumped to the ground, the young man stepped in to look at it. "Dude, those zombie are REAL." He sounded almost excited about the fact, though there was a slight hint of fear in his voice too. "Man, I knew them books were nonfiction."  
He looked up again, but the smile on his face fainted as the attack of the one zombie, had caught the attention of the dozen others roaming the hallway. A shrill shriek sounded, before a female zombie rushed towards them.  
"holy shit..!" the only female in their group sounded, having grabbed a baseball bat she flailed it in front of herself in defense. The mechanic had to dodge it slightly, looking at the bat with a surprised expression before he swung the fire axe at the zombies legs, incapacitating immediately and then planting the axe in the fallen zombies skull.

"Guess those suits don't stop bites" the brunette nodded towards a few zombies down the hall wearing hazmat suits with a CEDA logo on. The three others looked in the direction, a mix of disbelief and shock painted on their faces. "I think CEDA should have been telling us to do more than just wash our hands." The black woman spoke, as she eyed the stumbling silhouettes at the end of the hall.  
"Hey look over here.." The mechanic sounded, having moved up along a wall to peek inside through a couple of double doors. "Looks like CEDA was havin' a meeting of sorts in here.."

Pushing his way in there, and decapitating a zombie in the room, the man in the suit looked over the documents and maps "... Looks like New Orleans is the only safe place"  
Frowning, the mechanic followed him, momentarily looking over his shoulder at the map and then turning around to look through the rest of the room. "..They -never- told anyone it was this bad." The female pointed out, as he joined the suited man by the map. "Looks like we're goin' to Orleans!" The hick sounded with a strange, newfound optimism, shoving a pistol in front of the woman, after having checked it's ammo clip. She eyed it slightly, before reluctantly picking it up.  
The older brunette frowned slightly at that, about to speak up when he heard a low growling from the hallway "what the..."

Looking up, the mechanic's eyes shot towards the hallway. "Man, I do hope we don't meet whoever's making that noise.." He spoke quietly, tightening his grip around the fire axe. Slowly moving towards the door, the older male in white peeked out into the hall "..." when he didn't see anything, he walked out there.  
That was when a loud shriek was heard and someone in a hoodie jumped him  
"Shit, that zombie's got him!" The mechanic shouted before rushing through the door, swinging the axe at the side of the creature and knocking it away from the man.The thing yelped, growling at the younger, looking like it was about to leap again, its hands were like long claws, but the woman shot it, almost instantly.

Wide-eyed the male looked at the hooded zombies body, as it fell dead to the floor. "Don't suppose ya know what the hell that thing was?" He asked a little breathlessly as he smiled, offering the suited man his hand to help him up. Not that the man accepted his hand, he got up on his own "no idea, let's get the fuck going okay?"  
The younger didn't take any offense though and instead went over to curiously poke at the man's dead attacker, with the tip of the his axe. "Aw man, have y'guys seen the claws on this thing? Looks almost like a tiger!"

"Fo sho.." the larger man spoke grimly, looking at the thing as well "Good, that's decided. Moving on: I think this building's on fire. Sooo...I'd like to leave" the brunette pointed out, heading down towards the elevator. "I'm right behind ya!" The mechanic smiled as the rest of the group followed. He was true to his words too, staying just behind the other as he lead the way. However, when they got to the elevator, it was out of order "ah tits.." the man in the suit sounded "How are we gonna get down now..?"  
A discontent look spread on the woman's face as she moved backwards, while looking around for another way. "C'mon, c'mon.." The mechanic pressed the buttons of the elevator again and again, but of course to no avail. "It's not gonna' work, boy. Maybe we sho--" The large man's stream of speech was abruptly interrupted by a scream from the woman, as she was dragged down the closest hallway.  
"what the hell is that?!" the man in the suit rushed to her aid, but pretty much stopped when he saw the strange, thing around her "is that a tongue?!"  
There was another swing of an axe and a small gush of blood and slime, as the mechanic chopped the restraints against a wall. The axe got stuck in the wall but he had to leave it for now, as somewhere behind them an explosion sounded, the flames from the stories below, spreading to this floor as well.

The woman looked up at them, terror still showing in her eyes as she attempted to drag off the tongue-like-thing around her. "'Ey, it's fine. Let's get ya up." The younger man spoke with a calming voice as he smiled at her, pulling her up at her feet again.  
"We might be able to get down using the fire escape" the large man pointed out "But the road is blocked" he gestured to the hallway with all the burning debris  
"Well what about the room where that thing came from?" The mechanic asked as he pulled the fire axe out of the wall again and grimaced at the blood and slime it's head had been covered in.  
Peeking inside carefully, they could conclude it was a storage room of some kind "ah christ..." the one in the suit spoke "I don't like this anymore then you do- but looks like we can cross here" he pointed to the small ledge along the windows outside. The suggestion made the mechanic adjust his grip on the fire axe as he nodded and walked over to smash the glass. Once broken, he looked outside, his eyes scanning the ground way beneath him. "So eh, heh, any volunteers?" He asked and looked back at the rest.  
"Ladies first" the man in the suit spoke almost right away, earning him a glare from the female of the group. She did nontheless push her way through and outside. The others followed her, their eyes continuously looking over the edge as they slowly made their way forward. 

"Alright, I ain't usually scared of heights, but this is just crazy.." the youngest man spoke with a light chuckle in his voice and turned his head away, only to look in through the windows to the hotel rooms. "Ho-ly shit.." The rooms were literally crawling with infected humans.  
"Don't look down and don't look at them" the larger man spoke, the one in the suit right behind him, keeping his eyes looking out into the city, the whole area seemed to be crawling, it had appeared dead just moments ago... As ironic as it may be.  
"This room isn't on fire... But it's got infected" the woman spoke after they'd inched their way forward for a few moments.

The hick looked at her, as he readied the axe. "Ya'll cover me, right?" He asked, sending her a small smile along with a pair of puppy-like blue eyes; which made her smile softly "sure sweetie".  
At that he used the end of the axe to smash through the window, before kicking it in as he jumped inside. The first zombie was already latching out towards him with a hoarse shriek as everyone jumped inside, ending with its head smashed, blood flowing everywhere.  
Aah tits!" the man complained as a few stains hit his white suit.  
Another thing soon caught his attention though, as the door into the room was broken down by a bulky figure with a horrendously oversized arm. "Hey, watch ou--!" A loud, almost bull-like roar sounded as the thing charged towards the mechanic by the window, leaving the floor trembling as it thundered through.  
The youth was tackled - however not by the big menacing zombie, but by the man in the suit, who tackled him to the side. The oversized zombie continued to charge and actually charged right through the window and over the edge.

Having curled up slightly, the mechanic looked up at the dark-haired male and then towards the windows. "Shit! Did that thing just..?" He smiled and then chuckled a bit, returning his right eyes to the other. "Hey, thanks a lot!"  
"Don't mention it. Ever" the man quickly got up without offering the youngster any help, angry with himself.  
As the hick sat up himself, he made a sudden squirm followed by a pained noise. "Aw hell no.." He raised his left arm a bit, revealing that some of the broken glass on the floor, had pierced and stuck into his upper arm. Making thin red lines run down from the wounds.  
"shit, you all right boy?" the large man asked as he helped him to his feet.  
"I ain't lyin', this hurts." He replied with strained voice, though managed to smile nonetheless. There was a couple of rather large glass shards still in his arm, their edges stained red from the blood.  
"We need to take care of this..." the women spoke "We'll take care of it once we're safe... I don't trust that insane laughter coming from downstairs.."  
The hick still looked a bit uncertain at his arm, but then snapped himself out of it and nodded. "Yea, alright. Let's go.." He picked up the fire axe from the floor before speaking up "Guess we gotta' go through here." he turned to open the door leading to the hotel rooms. Smoke had started to build up underneath the ceiling, though not enough to obscure their visibility. There seemed to be a larger room at the end of the hall and signs revealed that an elevator could be reached from there.

"perhaps that elevator works" the largest male spoke optimisticly as their little group moved down the hall.  
"We're about to find out." The young local spoke, having regained his stunning optimism as they neared the area. Cutting down whatever zombie would stand in their way, though his smile fainted as they got closer. The last room was stuffed with zombies and who knew what else.  
"holy sheet.." the largest man looked it all over "there's no way we're gonna get through that.."  
The suit clad man wasn't listening though, he was eyeing something next to a CEDA corpse, picking up the bottle he glanced at its contents " that can't be a bottle of puke is it...?" he spoke out loud for himself, really hoping the contents wasn't what it looked like.  
A disgusted expression spread over the youngest face as he joined the older and looked at the cylinder. "Oh, man, a jar is no place for bodily functions!" He exclaimed, sounding like it was the most ungodly thing he could even think of.

Aagreed" the brunette watched the crowd for a while ".. Maybe it will distract them?"  
"Oh, I bet whatever's in there could distract anybody. I mean have ya seen the color of that shit?!" The mechanic dried a little sweat off his temple with the back of his hand, only to leave a trail of blood there instead as it had run down his arm.  
"Better than nothing.." the older threw the bottle towards the large crowd in a nice straight curve, the glass broke as it hit the floor and a steam of green immediately came from it.  
It worked, oh boy it worked. Even zombies from the other rooms came rushing, just to flail around in the scent

For a moment the group just stood there. The display seeming too good to be true, as some of the zombies that had been hit was even attacked by the others. "What are you all waiting for? Come on!" The black woman spoke up as she snapped out of it,pushing the men in the back, down the hall and hurrying past the now even bigger crowd of infected. The largest man started smashing the button in the elevator as the zombies attention started turning back to them. The mechanic cursed loudly. "C'mon, man! Close the doors!" He shouted, kicking a zombie right in the gut as it got within distance. Sending in stumbling backwards into a bunch of its friends.  
Finally the doors closed and everybody let out a breath "you did good there boy... What's your name?" the larger man spoke. It took a short moment for the hick to realize that he was being addressed, but once he did, he took off his cap politely. "Folks call me Ellis, or some people call me El. But I really prefer Ellis 'cause El kinda sounds like a girl's name. But if you prefer to call me El, I guess you can." He babbled slightly, before continuing. "I run an auto shop with a couple of my buddies 'round here.. What about you? Ya a coach of sorts?"

"Fo sho. Local college, I'm the football coach" he chuckled "My friends call me Coach, guess ya'll can do the same"  
"names' Rochelle" the women spoke kindly "you?" "Nick, that's all you need to know" the man in the suit spoke flatly, not very interested in making friends with these people.  
"That short for something?" The youngest spoke however, looking at the man with a grin as he took off his cap to dry away sweat from his forehead. That being said, wasn't the elevator starting to get warmer?  
Nick didn't answer him, not wanting to give the hick any ideas "where's all this smoke coming from?" Coach noted as the elevator suddenly became full of it. Coughing lightly, the mechanic stumbled a bit as the elevator came to a sudden stop, the doors jamming shut and not opening. "This some sorta' nightmare?" He asked in disbelief as he went over to investigate the doors.

Coughing as well Nick walked over and pushed him away, jamming his crowbar in-between the doors "I bet there's gonna be something waiting for us out there" he warned, because why wouldn't there be, everything was going so well after all.  
Ellis rubbed his wounded arm a bit as the man had pushed against it, however he didn't complain as he picked up the fire axe again, nodding at the man to let him know he was ready. Which was good, because as soon as the doors opened, they were met with an inferno "perfect..." Nick groaned, a loud howl sounding not too far away from them.  
The heat that met them was almost unbearable, not to mention the heavy smoke that left them with little to no visibility at all. "I don't know about you guys, but that there didn't sound good.." Ellis quietly spoke, looking down the burning hallway.

"that doesn't look good" Nick pointed out, looking down the burning hall as en entire horde of zombies came for them.  
"Oh shit.. Here they come!" The young man shouted, planting the axe into the collarbone of the first zombie that reached them. Placing a foot on its stomach, he used it as counterweight for pulling the axe free, sending the zombie into a pile of burning debris.

Suddenly it seemed like shots fired from everywhere, Coach seemed to have found some sort of SMG gun and Rochelle were firing hers as well, it caused the young man to stand back, only picking off the strays that didn't mindlessly run into the bullet storm or flames.  
"The hell is- GAH!!" Nick shouted as something jumped onto his back, pulling him away from the group.  
It was pure luck that, though having been in the middle of finishing a zombie himself, the hick saw the back of the suited man as he was being lead away. "Coach! There's something on his back!" He shouted. "Shoot it off!"

"I could hit him..!" the man shouted "GET THIS THING OF ME!" Nick shouted, the 'thing' laughing hysterically as it pulled him away.  
"Well shit!" The mechanic rushed after them, pushing away zombies as he fought his way closer to man. Holding tight unto his weapon, he finally bashed the blunt side of the fire axe's head into the cackling creature, knocking it off his fellow survivor.  
The thing got off and immediately leaped at Rochelle instead who screamed in both surprise and fright.  
Cursing loudly, Ellis copied his move once again. Only this time, the zombie barely hit the ground before the fire axe was planted straight into its chest. The hysteric laughter finally coming to an end. "Damn.." He spoke breathlessly, looking exhausted down at the creature.  
"the hell is that thing?" Rochelle looked at it horrified, how had that ever been a human.

The hick didn't reply at first, he was still catching his breath, which due to the smoke was harder than it looked. "Looked like a monkey on a mule." He adjusted his cap and wiped some sweat off his face. "Ya' two alright?" He asked, looking at Rochelle and then back to Nick.  
"yeah, thanks Ellis" Rochelle smiled whereas Nick simply shrugged. As they headed down the hall they found a small sideroom which hassome shotguns stored away, most likely left by CEDA agents.

"Sum' bitches are gonna' be sorry that they ran into us!" Ellis grinned as he loaded the shotgun after having secured the fire axe on his back.  
"Technically, I'm not legally allowed to own a gun, hope you're all okay with that " Nick said nonchalantly, grinning at his new found weapon. Immediately earning him worried glances from Coach and Rochelle.  
"That's cool" Ellis just replied "one of my buddies ain't allowed to do that either." Heshrugged with a smile. "It was all a big misunderstandin' y'see, but police here in Georgia ain't no one to be messed with so ya do the math. Anyway, what happened was--"  
"Now might not be the best time" Coach spoke, interupting the youth as the building was still very much on fire, he headed out into the hallway again.

Ellis caught unto the point immediately and just followed the large man outside again. "Alright Coach. Ya lead the way!"  
They had to navigate through a burning kitchen before coming into a large room that was completely on fire "are those suits fireproof?" Nick asked nobody in particular as he noticed some CEDA zombies walking around in the fire, not seeming bothered or crispy like the rest. It had mechanic lift his trucker cap lightly, looking at the zombies in a strange kind of amazement. "Well, I'll be damned. Fireproof zombies." He lifted the shotgun, aiming it towards them.  
As he did a big fat zombie suddenly appeared behind the fire, making gross gurgling noises.

"Hole shi--!" Surprise and fright struck him for a second, but it was enough for him to pull the trigger of the shotgun and fire straight towards the grossly overweight and tumor filled zombie. As a result, the zombie exploded, goo getting everywhere, staining the youth with greenish slime.  
It made him stumble a few steps backwards from the impact. "Argh! I can't see shit!" He exclaimed, dropping his shotgun as he tried to wipe the reaking goo out of his eyes and off his face. "Aw! This stuff -sucks-!"  
"we got bigger problems than that Overalls!" Nick shouted as a large horde of zombies came running, aiming for the blinded hick.  
The young man still remained unmoving as he attempted to get the sticky slime off his face. "I didn't hear ya.. What did you s--" He finally regained some sight, just in time to see the shambling mass of zombies rush towards him. Luckily the three others rushed to his aid, fighting them off as good as they could, everything was such a close face-on battle that when the zombies were finally dead. Everyone was bruised up.

"Aw man. I swear these here zombies are tryin' to kill me.." The hick groaned as he bend down to pick up the shotgun from the floor. Wiping some goo off it with his hand.  
Nick grimaced "now you smell even worse than before.." he started walking away from the three  
The statement made Ellis turn his head, sniffing the shoulder of his own shirt, but the Coach just patted him on the back and had him follow as they made their way past the burning furniture. The attack before having pretty much cleaned the entire room.

"Hey look, a safe room!" Rochelle exclaimed, pointing to the end of the room, which contained a CEDA issued, fortified, red door "Well I'll be damned, let's go in there and get some rest"  
A relieved and almost happy atmosphere seemed to spread within the entire group as they headed in the direction of the safe room. These rooms had pretty much been set up by CEDA on critical locations in every city and should contain a number of supplies - of course it seemed like a high bet to trust anything from CEDA right now.

"What's that noise?" Coach spoke as they neared the room, soft squeals could be heard the closer they got to the open door.  
It made Ellis narrow his eyes as he listened for the sound. "..Is it comin' from in there?" He asked, pointing the tip of the shotgun at the red, reinforced door.  
"Sounds like it.." Rochelle spoke, already on guard as they slowly inched forward.  
Being by the door now, the group halted for a moment, most of them exchanging looks before the mechanic finally reached out to push it open.  
"'Ellooo? Anybody here?" they didn't receive a human reply, but they did get a screeching sound as a tall mutated woman with no jaw or nose appeared, glowing green slob dripping from her mouth.  
Nick made no hesitation to shoot her, as she dropped dead to the ground she left a small pool of what looked like acid around her.  
"... That is the scariest fucking thing I've ever seen in my entire life" Nick noted in disgust when he saw the pink thong  
The youngest merely nodded in horror as he inched his way into the room, making sure not to touch the green, sizzling stuff on the floor. "Thing sure got a big.. Neck.." He muttered, seeming a little shocked from having faced this thing moments before.

"yeah.." Nick inched by it as well, once everyone was inside, the door was locked and blocked with a few chairs once Coach and Ellis had pushed the dead infected out of the way, nobody wanted that thing inside.  
Once they all finally had time to relax, the mechanic leaned his back against a wall and let himself slide down until he sat. "Phew, that was some crazy shit, man!" He pulled off his cap, revealing curly, light brown hair.  
Nick was suddenly by his side though, holding a CEDA issued first aid kit in his hands, surprising the hick who had been in the middle of running a hand through his thick hair; he stopped in mid-motion, looking up at the suit-clad man in slight wonder.

"give me your arm.." Nick just spoke, looking away as he sat down next to him.  
The hick didn't say anything, but merely lifted his left arm. Small pieces of glass was still stuck in his skin and the dried blood had mixed up with the goo he had earlier been covered in.  
Nick started out by removing the glass pieces before cleaning the wounds carefully. He seemed to know what he was doing, but he kept a very distant and antisocial attitude towards the younger man.  
Ellis had to bit down on his knuckles while the glass was removed, however as the cleaning started he turned his head and watched with deep interest. "Wow, Nick, looks like you've done kinda' stuff before." He finally spoke, sounding very impressed with the older man.  
"I have. Don't ask " the man spoke rather sternly.

"Okay." came the accepting reply as Ellis nodded, continuing to watch how the older man's hands worked. His eyes occasionally gliding over the man's slightly bloodied, white suit.  
His eyes moved further up, noticing the blue shirt was slightly unbuttoned at the top, revealing bandages over his chest with dried blood patches, which caught his interest.  
His blue eyes narrowed a bit before he looked up at the man. "So I guess ya ran into some zombies before runnin' into the rest of us?" He asked, smiling as he tried to keep a conversation going with the older.  
"you could say that" the man spoke shortly, bandaging the arm.  
The arm made a light jerk as Ellis let out a complaining sound, the bandages being tightened around his arm a little too harshly. "Heh, and here I thought it had stopped hurtin' already."  
"mmhmm.." was all the responds he got. When Nick finished he immediately stood and left the youngers side.  
"Hey Nick?" The mechanic spoke up as he looked after him. His head tilting a bit as he waited for the man to turn around and face him. Once he did, he looked at the hick expectantly, wanting him to get it over quickly.

"Thanks, I owe you one." He smiled brightly, putting his cap back on after having rubbed some of the dried in goo off it.  
"whatever.." Nick muttered, walking over to sit in a chair by himself.  
It didn't take long before the youngest got up and went about to investigate the room. There was a couple of vending machines in there, one for drinks and one for snacks. There was also a small counter in the corner, which he dived down behind to continue his search.  
There were a few guns left behind in the room, but nothing too big, but at least they could defend themselves with them. The other safe room door lead to the outside, and judging by the sound, there was even more out there.


	2. The Streets

The safe room the small odd group of survivors stayed in contained more than one door, the room must've been a janitorial restroom of some sort as it had access to a small restroom with a toilet and a sink, the latter caused the hick to grin in delight, walking in there he turned on the water to wash his face and grab a drink.  
Meanwhile inside the main room, Coach had found some chart with infected on statistics on it "here's some of the infected we've met.." he noted, looking over the silhouette drawings and classifications of them.  
"Yea? Does it say anythin' about that creepy thing we carried out of here?" Ellis shouted from the room, over the sound of splashing water.

"Called a Spitter, spits acid.." the man grimaced slightly "The one that jumped Nicholas-" "Don't call me that" "and Ro is called a Jockey, seems appropriate..." he chuckled at his own morbid joke.  
"What about the first one?" The hick asked as he walked out of the room, drying his hands in a paper towel. His face having now been cleaned from the battle, but what was more noticeable was the fact that he was missing his shirt. "Y'know the one with the claws and all?"  
"Hunter" Rochelle read "Leaps on targets, claws its prey open?" she looked at it wide eyed, how could a virus do that to a person, were they even people anymore.  
Ellis let out an impressed whistle, looking towards Nick with a grin. "Did ya hear that, Nick? Sounds like you got lucky up there!" he sounded with a big, bright grin thrown at the suit clad mans way.  
"mmhmm.." Nick only sounded "we're gonna need something better then these" he then said, ignoring the ongoing conversations about the infected as he held up his shotgun.

Throwing the paper towel into a nearby trashcan, the mechanic scratched his hair lightly under the cap. "Well I know there's a gun-store at the way to the mall. We might be able to find somethin' there if we pass it." He suggested.  
"well, guess living here finally pays off" "Mister, I don't think I like your attitude" "whatever..." Nick shrugged, standing by the door as he ignored the rest of co-survivors to check on how the situation was outside.  
"Oh ya live here too?" The young man exclaimed with a smile, while looking at Nick, not having picked up on the sarcasm in the man's voice. "Not that I mean to sound surprised or anythin', but ya just didn't strike me as bein' one of the locals at first, but I guess--" "I'm not" Nick interrupted him quickly "well... It says here on this list that there's a big evac in some mall" Rochelle noted, trying to divert from a potential arguement.  
"Yea, yea, that's probably the mall we're headed to." Ellis merely picked up in the new conversation, now turning to face Rochelle instead.  
"Then I guess thats where we're headed..." Nick spoke, fixing his jacket slightly, frowning at some of the red stains that graced it, that was going to be hell to get out.  
The mechanic nodded as he walked back into the small room, only to return moments later with his soaked t-shirt. It now being clean of all the blood and slime he'd encountered. It made Nick lift a brow slightly at him, but didn't say anything to it "We ready then?" Coach asked.  
"Just a moment" He took off his cap and pulled on the wet shirt, the soaked fabric sticking to his body underneath, as he put on his cap again and picked up his weapons. "Alright, I'm ready. Y'all ready?"  
"... Thats just impractical" Nick muttered as the door opened.

The area outside in the front was full of infected. Nick got his crowbar stuck through the head of a zombie in the matter of moments, but quickly found a discarded baseball bat instead "ahh... Brings back some memories" "you play ball?" Coach tried in a friendly manner "nope~" was Nick only response, a cheeky smirk on his lips.  
A couple of zombies were sent flying as Ellis fired his shotgun at them at close range. "Looks like CEDA was holdin' up here for a while!" He shouted back to the others, as he looked in the direction of a large tent further up the road. "Might be somethin' we could use in there."  
"perhaps!" Rochelle sounded, having found a shotgun herself, when they went up further, another fat zombie was walking around, the Boomer as it had been called on the chart.  
The young man made sure to keep his distance this time, not wanting another go at being covered in that puke-like green whatever-it-was. The thing was shot at a safer distance this time, sparing everybody of that scenario. 

Inside the tent they found some medications, a few adrenelin shots and pipe bombs which left an overly satisfied smirk on Ellis' lips as he weighed one of the bombs in his hand. "Yea, I'm goin' to be blowin' some zombies up with this baby!" He stuffed the thing into his pocket, the tip of it sticking out.  
"why the hell were they making these?" Nick asked to himself, examining the bomb, wondering just how bad things were with the infected that a government organization had to pull in explosives?  
"To blow stuff up ofcourse!" The mechanic sounded beside him. A large grin on his face. "'Ey, I ever tell you about the time Keith and I made fireworks? Now, I didn't know shit about chemistry, but Keith figured "Gasoline burns, doesn't it?" Heh, third-degree burns on 95 percent of his body. Man, people in the next city were callin' to complain about the smell of burned skin!" He chuckled to himself, smiling fondly at the memory.  
"this Keith, he a friend of yours?" Rochelle asked politely as they headed down the road, doding a few turned over cars on their way.  
"Best buddy there ever was, Ma'm!" He smiled, adjusting his cap a bit and rubbing his nose slightly. "Man, him and I go way back. Been together since we were 10 or something."  
"oh yeah? Where is he now?" she asked, smiling softly at the enthusiastic young southerner.  
That had Ellis scratch the back of his neck a bit. "Well I suppose he's where we're headed now. He was one of the first to get on one of them whirlybirds y'see." A proud grin appeared on his face "helicopter" it sounded from Nick walking in the back of the group. "Y'know instead of evacuatin', I armored up a truck to drive myself out of here. Built that thing to be zombie-proof!"  
"oh yeah? Did it work?" the woman quickly continued.

"Well no, I figured out it was only 99% zombie-proof. The other 1% tore that truck to SHIT." He explained, though not seeming overly sad about the loss. "Y'all should have seen it though! It had these real' cool spikes at the front bomber and I even painted eyes and teeth on it too!"  
"sounds awesome young'in" Coach chuckled, they went in through a door in some side building, which would provide as a shortcut to the mall.  
"Do you guys hear crying?" Rochelle suddenly asked, the sound appearing once the door had opened.  
The mechanic stopped to listen closer. "Sounds like a cryin' girl.." He thought for a moment, before leaning closer to Nick, whispering. "You think she's cryin' 'cause the mall closed down..?"  
Nick had jerked backwards when the kid got too close, and though it took him a moment to realize the kid had wanted to joke with him, when he did, he snorted slightly "maybe.."  
Grinning at him, the hick seemed pleased with Nick's reaction, as he turned his attention back to the matter at hand "she might need our help" Coach spoke, walking down the stairs to the dark room "it's louder... I think she's outside".  
"I don't know, man.. I don't like the sound of that crying.." Ellis spoke quietly, but followed the large man down the stairs nonetheless. Holding his shotgun at the ready. They came out to another road, which was infested with zombies as well, all who immediately ran for them once they noticed their presence.   
Cursing, the mechanic had the first few zombies gunned down, before he ran out of shells. "Reloadin'!" He shouted, kneeling down to reload the shotgun while out of the line of fire. A zombie leapt for him, but was instantly shot by Nick, he certainly knew how to handle guns for someone who wasn't allowed to have them.

Ellis had of course jumped a bit from the zombie being that close, but as he looked at the man in the suit, he merely laughed. "Damn Nick! Well.. Why doesn't it surprise me you're good with a gun?"  
The man simply shrugged at him, not seeming faced by it all "let's get going, I'm in a hurry.." he marched on, eager to get out of here. "Right with ya!" The mechanic sounded, running up to join by his side. He soon climbed up to stand on the railing separating the two roads and a small green area. "'Ey, I'm thinkin' I can see the gun shop's flags from here!" He covered his eyes a bit from the sun, looking over the fences. It was true, an American flag was waving in the wind in the distance, but of course they were nowhere near it yet.  
"Great then we can-" Nick suddenly grabbed the younger's arm, hauling him away from the fence.  
"Ow, ow! What are ya pullin' at me for?" Ellis complained slightly as Nick grabbed on to his wounded arm, while he stumbled down from the railing.  
The man didn't explain, his eyes were glaring at something, when Coach and Rochelle caught up to them, the woman gasped in surprise and aimed her gun. From between the bushes came the crying woman, she was skin and bones, pale, her hair matte and dirty, her clothes torn but most noticeable was her long dark claws.

Ellis fell silent at an instant, his eyes watching the figure with fear as he took a few steps backwards, before looking at the others with questioning eyes.  
"The hell is that?" Coach hissed, pointing his own shotgun at the crying zombie, who just walked around, face hidden in her 'hands'.  
"I'm thinkin' we should leave her alone.." The young man whispered, holding his breath as her track began leading towards him and Nick "yeah.." the man agreed, backing away from the thing as it came closer.  
Not hesitating a moment, the mechanic followed him. His breath still held as he carefully attempted to inch his way past the skinny, female zombie. She was awfully close to them, when she took notice, she began growling more and more aggressively. It caused the hick to freeze up in the middle of his motion, watching the zombie for a brief second, before he moved to continue with quickened pace.  
They managed to pass her. Moving down the road they soon found it blocked underneath the bridge, Ellis had been looking over his shoulder all the way, keeping an eye on that crying zombie that just seemed to circle around by herself.  
"we can perhaps get to other side over this dumpster" Coach suddenly spoke "but be careful.. I think I hear one of them Boomers.."  
The mechanic nodded as he'd removed his gaze away from the crying girl, walking over to climb the dumpster first. Once having peeked over the edge and made sure the coast was clear, he pulled himself up and then offered his hand to help up Rochelle.  
"Thanks" she smiled while climbing up, she frowned however when she saw all the zombies, there just seemed to be more and more of them. He send her a small smile, but obviously shared a bit of her worry as he reached down to offer both Coach and Nick help too.  
Coach took his hand, Nick didn't, he climbed up there on his own, muttering something about how filthy this was.  
Once they were all on the dumpster, Ellis ran his eyes over the large gathering of zombies that were between them and the building across the street. His eyes then glanced to the pipe bomb he'd picked up earlier, as he pulled it out of his pocket to examine it closer.  
"That thing should catch their attention..." Nick spoke as he saw the mechanic look at it "if puke can, then those certainly can"  
But his words were partially overheard, as a button on the bomb caught the other's attention and within a moment, he'd pushed it making the bomb let out a loud series of beeps as a small light began blinking red.  
"The hell are you doing?! Throw it!" Nick shouted  
Seeming to snap back into reality, the young man looked at him quickly before immediately obeying orders, throwing the bomb in a large curve over the road. The many zombies following the sound and rushing after it.  
As the bomb exploded along with the zombies, Nick smacked the hick upside the head "are you trying to get us killed?!" he snarled angrily at the younger man much to the disdain of the rest of the group.  
The mechanic moved a hand, to rub his now hurting back head. "Hey, stop wackin' me!" He protested in slight surprise. "I didn't know what I was doin', okay? These things ain't like firecrakers y'know."

"Nick, leave the boy alone" Coach warned angrily "Ain't no use fighting amongst ourselves"  
Ellis continued to rub his back head, watching the man in the suit for a moment with apologetic eyes, though it was clear that he didn't think he'd been treated fair, not that Nick seemed to care, however when they entered the next building he got his just deserved. He'd only just managed to come up the stairs, when one of those big armed things took him. A Charger dragged him all the way out on a small bridge, a good distance away from them and started slamming him into the ground  
"One of them chargin' things!" The mechanic shouted as he had rushed upstairs, once he heard the zombie's very distinctive roar. Grabbing his fire axe, he dashed out to get the thing off the man, though it took a few solid chops into the creature's skull before it let go.  
It would also delay their trip to the gun shop, as the ground pounding had knocked out Nick for a while.  
"Aw shit. Shit, shit, shit.." The younger chanted to himself as he looked the man over, before hooking his own arms underneath Nick's and dragging him back into the room "Is he okay?" Rochelle was at Ellis' side right away, eyes running over the unconscious man in worry.  
"Think so.." Ellis sounded breathlessly, pulling off his cap and wiping some sweat from his forehead. "He's still breathin', guess he's just all tuckered out from that monster beatin' his ass."  
"Thats karma right there "Coach murmured in the background as he went to inspect the room they had arrived in"Found some more pills here as well as ammo.. And an Assault Rifle"  
"Don't suppose ya found some water, did ya?" Ellis asked, still looking down at the gambler in slight worry.  
"Hmm.." he looked some more around "there's a sink here.." he went to turn on the water, which luckily came with a slight gurgle. Getting up, the mechanic walking over and cupped his hands under the water. Once filled with water he walked back and knelt down by the man's side. "You sure this is a good idea?" Rochelle asked, inching a bit backwards as she watched the young man. "Yea sure! Ya probably won't believe how many time I've had to wake up people like this." He grinned before parting his hands over Nick's head, letting the water splash unto his face.

The man spluttered and sat up, wiping at his face "What the- the fuck you think you're doing?!" but his tone didn't even affect the youth, who simply laughed at him and patted his shoulder. "Oh man Nick, ya were scarin' me there for a second pal!"  
He pushed his hand away "I ain't your 'pal'..!" he hissed, still slightly shaken and confused about everything. And shit his head and back hurt like hell. "'Ey man, relax. I was just tryin' to cheer you up. That zombie knocked ya up good." Ellis tried, as the grin fainted a bit on his face.  
"hmmph.." the older man groaned as he held his head "...Thanks, I guess"  
The mechanics smile returned back to full force again "I knew you'd be okay." he stood again, once again offering the man his hand to help him up. "C'mon, we got zombies to kill and shit, and we ain't that far from the store no more."  
"..." this time he did take his hand, though he immediately went for the assault rifle afterwards.

It didn't seem to bother the youth who still had his shotgun. Though he did stuff some extra ammo in his pockets just in case "there's a million of them out there.." Rochelle noted "feels like this is never gonna end.."  
"Hey now, it's too early to be sayin' things like that already." Ellis smiled, walking over and giving her side a soft nudge. "Besides we're pretty close to the mall now, ya can actually almost see it from here."  
"I suppose so.." she smiled at him softly "...I think I've found something" Nick sounded outside the room, standing by the broken railing and looking down on top of some public toilet booths, was a corpse - and a grenade launcher. Ellis followed him outside, a light seeming to catch in his eyes as a kid who'd received an early Christmas present. "Oh, hell, yeah, I gotta' have that one!" He grinned, jumping down unto the public toilets.  
"Well you better clear the road then Overalls.." Nick jumped down behind him and gesturing to the road before them, which like before had loads of infected roaming around.In response, Ellis leant down, picking up the grenade launcher, his fingertips caressing the barrel shortly as he looked over the weapon with soft eyes.  
"c'mon I'm in a hurry" Nick stressed, the two others joining them on top of the port-a-potties.  
He didn't have to tell the young man twice, before he pulled the trigger, sending the first grenade flying through the air and landing at the feet of about a dozen zombies. All of them blowing into pieces within a second after. "YEAH-HA-HA-HAA!"  
The youngster got some weird looks at first, but it was soon replaced by soft chuckles and bemused expressions - at least from Rochelle and Coach.

Soon most of the road had been cleared and the remaining zombies were easily taken out with mellee weapons or a few bullets. Ellis strapped the grenade launcher to his back, wanting to keep it around just in case they would need it again.  
The rest of the trip went without notice and they arrived at the gun store, which, despite being fully stocked, seemed abandoned.  
"candy store for adults" Nick grinned as he stepped in, pleased with the free loot.  
"Ho-ly shit!" The mechanic exclaimed as he rushed behind the counter and pulled a combat rifle down from the wall. Almost hugging it in happiness. "Man, I've been wantin' this rifle since I was nine!"  
Nick instead went for the larger assault rifle, grinning slightly despite himself "we got laser sights here..!" Rochelle called, pointing out a box with the attachments, but it didn't catch Ellis' attention, as he picked up a hunting rifle too and even a magnum from one of the broken displays. "This is like Christmas!" he exclaimed excitedly.  
"Whats this here?" Coach pushed a button on a speaker set hanging on the wall "Hello there" a new voice sounded "I've barricaded myself with some provisions... But in my haste, I forgot cola. So I have a proposition for you four"  
Having strapped the hunting rifle over his other shoulder, it and the grenade launcher now formed an X on the hick's back as he walked over to listen to the speaker. His hands attaching a laser sight to the combat rifle as he did.  
"How about, I let you take these guns, as a gift, and you go get me some cola?" the man on the speaker spoke.  
"Cola for guns; I think this is like the reverse of what my school did." The mechanic mumbled, before speaking. "I can understand that, Sir. A man needs his snacks. We'll get that cola for ya." Turning his head, he looked slightly over his shoulder as he whispered to Nick. "Man, this guy's weird.."  
"hmhm.." Nick leaned to the speaker "you screw us, and I will kill you with your own gun" he threatened, after all he didn't appreciate being someone's bellboy.  
"Now Nick, there's no reason for that kinda' language." Ellis noted in an oddly teaching voice. Though he didn't comment on it any further as the electronic lock on the backdoor was opened.  
Walking out they were met with a large empty parking lot and a locked down grocery store "Wanna bet there's an alarm on that place?" Nick spoke, eyes running over the facade of the building. The hick jumped down a ledge, the guns smacking against each other on his back as he landed. "So? Doubt the police's gonna' come get us?"

"But maybe it'll attract the zombies" Rochelle followed up, seeing where Nick was coming from " if those pipe bombs attract them, then this will.."  
The young man looked back at the rest, throwing his arms to the sides in slight defeat. "Don't really see any other way to do it."  
Sighing Nick walked over and kicked the door open, the alarm went off right away "there we go! he shouted above the noise "Go in and get it then!" Ellis shouted back, turning his back to the door as he scanned the parking lot with attentive eyes.  
From everywhere the zombies came running, howling loudly. Nick soon came rushing with the cola "I got it!"  
"Ya know where to drop it!" The youngest shouted over the gunfire, as he began shooting down zombies that was climbing over a chain link fence. The man started running around back, Rochelle ran to give him cover, but was jumped by a Hunter, her pained screams were horrifying. Nick saved her by smashing the Hunters head with the colas. Which he had to admit was a little badass.  
Behind them Ellis shouted for them to keep going as him an Coach held off the approaching horde, while trying to follow the best they could while Rochelle remained on the ground in pain, blood already soaking her t-shirt slightly.  
"Get yo' ass movin', Nicholas!" The large man yelled at the depth of his lungs, as the hick lowered his weapon and seized fire to run over and help Rohelle up. "It's fine, let me just get ya up." He spoke as softly as he could manage in the rush.  
"It hurts.." she hissed "I got it I got it!" Nick shouted, putting the cola in the slot, seconds later there was an explosion , clearing the road leading directly to the mall.  
Rochelle was helped up no less, the young man supporting her as the three of them looked up towards the walkway, from where a shout had sounded.  
"Get it off me!" Nick shouted from up above "sheet..!" Coach hissed, starting to run towards the other man who had been caught by a zombie with the long tongue, but he'd gotten stuck while being dragged, the infected tried to pull him onto the roof, but was more likely choking the man.  
Dropping his weapon, Ellis pulled the hunting rifle off his shoulder and placed it in his arms, his one eye glancing through the scope in Nick's direction, a quick adjustment of his aim and then a loud shot sounded from the rifle, before the man in the suit was once again reunited with the ground beneath him. The slimed, tumor-like tongue pooling around his neck and shoulders while the tall zombie let out of hoarse hiss before retreating.  
The man coughed heavily, stumbling to his feet before hurrying down the stairs and back to them. Goddamn, how many times had the hick saved him today? Fuck..  
Putting the rifle back on his shoulder, Ellis turned his attention to the woman by his side again. "How ya feelin', Ro? You well enough to walk?" He asked, watching her with worried eyes.

"It's stopped bleeding.." she let out a breath "but I don't think it's all that bad I just... Need it to be cleaned and bandaged.." luckily the infected had barely gotten to her before Nick had dealt with it.  
"Let's get you somewhere safe quickly then." He send her a friendly smile and leaned down to pick up his assault rifle, before putting an arm around her to support her. "Let's go." He began leading her towards the now cleared way, the rumble from the explosion still smoking a bit.  
"Bunch of tents up ahead by the mall.. Might find another safe house up there... I suggest we take a break for a few minutes" Coach suggested as they headed up towards the area.  
The young man nodded, still holding on to wounded woman as they walked. His eyes continuing to glance down at her, to make sure she wasn't getting worse.  
She was clutching her chest but was keeping up, even Nick joined them, though he was in a pretty bad state as well, having gotten some beatings by the infected already.  
They passed the CEDA tents on the big parking lot without much time to really search them. Though is was a relief for them all, when they spotted the red, reinforced door at the entrance to the mall.  
"C'mon hurry!" Coach stood guard as everyone got inside, taking care of the zombies that got too close, once inside, the large man made sure to lock the door up tightly. Even dragging a table in front of it just to make sure.  
"fuck.." Nick sat down against the wall, catching his much needed breath while the mechanic had Rochelle sit down against a wall too, before he started getting rid of the many guns he was carrying. The load sure weren't light, but he seemed to have to shoulders to carry it.  
"how you feeling girl?" Coach asked "It stings.. But I don't think it's serious.." she smiled softly up at him, glad to get some rest.  
"Ain't nothin' but a scratch." The hick smiled at her, as he rolled his one shoulder lightly. "Lil' first aid and you'll be good to go in no time." "I guess so.." she eyed Nick slightly, who was still keeping a distance to them all "Coach, would you mind giving me a hand?" "No problem girl".  
In the meantime Ellis turned away politely, picking up the hunting rifle he walked over to sit down by Nick. "Man, what a day, huh?" He asked with a grin. "Makes ya really wanna' go for a cold one."  
Nick rose a brow at him "why are you talking to me?" he asked, confused as to why the youth constantly wanted to converse with him. The question seemed to surprise the young man, catching him a bit off guard. "Why not?" He asked back. "Don't people usually talk to you? I mean you seem like a guy who knows lots of people. Figured you'd be used to it."  
"Well, we're not buddies or anything kid" Nick spoke indifferently.  
"It's cool, it's cool, man. I can talk to people who ain't my buddies!" He spoke optimistically, completely missing the man's point. "Actually I talk to pretty much any sorts of people, 'cause you ain't never gonna' know where a new friend might show up. Y'see my buddy Keith--"  
"stop" the man spoke immediately "just stop. I don't care"  
"Alright.." The other sounded, his eyes travelling down to the rifle in his hands as he began reloading it, while he did, Nick got some painkillers for himself, checking his own chest wound absentmindedly  
Turning his head a bit, the mechanic couldn't help but look curiously. "So did ya get jumped by one of those hoodie-dudes?" He asked sending the other a friendly smile.

"no" the man simply spoke, buttoning up the shirt a bit more than before, not interested in being asked too many questions.  
"Doesn't look too good man." Ellis noted. "Want me to take a look at it? Those zombies out there really gave ya hell." He spoke, his voice now a little more concerning than before. "It's the least I can do after ya fixed up my arm!"  
"It's fine" Nick spoke, looking away. Rochelle was back on her feet not too long after "as soon as the pills kick in, I'm good to go" she smiled at Ellis, smiling back at her, the man got up again and left Nick sitting by himself. "Great, the evac center should be inside the mall, so we only have to go a bit longer." He said, walking over to equip all his weapons again "yeah we just- Whoa!" Coach sounded as a large horde of zombies appeared by the other door, their arms reaching inside between the bars in the door window.  
Looking towards the reinforced door, Ellis tilted his cap a bit and raised an eyebrow. "Those zombies ain't supposed to be in the mall." He noted in surprise and worry "yeah, dat don't look good" Coach took a gun and started gunning them down "sheet..." he hissed "You don't suppose the entire mall...?" Rochelle spoke softly, looking at her companions with renewed worry.  
"Aw man, no! No, ofcourse not, I mean the evac's gotta' be here, right?" He spoke, keeping up the positive attitude. "Maybe the evac center is just further inside."  
"I agree. We gotta stay positive.." Coach finished the last one "hows dem pills coming along?" "feeling a lot better, we can keep going if ya'll ready" the woman smiled, loading his own assault rifle, the mechanic send the two a confident, almost amused grin. "Ma'm, I'm locked up and good to go."  
Sighing in half defeat Nick got on his feet as well "okay, time to go"


	3. The Mall

As they opened the door into the mall, it was a rather depressing if not creepy sight that met them. This floor had obviously contained some sort of clothing department, but was now mostly covered in darkness as the power had been cut, making the stripped down mannequin's appear just as threatening as any zombie.  
"well.. This is creepy" Rochelle noted, jumping slightly whenever they found a mannequin.  
"I hate malls.." Nick muttered softly to himself.  
"Man, I love malls! I do." Ellis spoke up, right after the man's low mumbled. "Once, I was in this mall up in Atlanta, and these guys were dancing for like money and stuff and my friend Dave and I was all--"  
"Ellis. Shut up" Nick spoke "maybe later, okay sweetie?" Rochelle sounded much more kindly than Nick had. He nodded at her, not seeming to take any offense by her suggestion. "Yea, okay." He simply smiled before nodding in another direction. "Gotta' go up the escalator."  
"Let's try and be careful.." Nick spoke "I think I hear one of those big armed ones.."

Heading up the broken down escalator, Ellis was quick to pick off the first couple of zombies that stood in their way. His eyes squinting lightly in the low light, as he tried to make out which way to go. They hadn't gotten very far before the Charger came rushing, knocking Ellis over as it charged past them, making him land unto the two weapon's he was carrying with a groan, only to grab Coach away from the group.  
"Coach!" it was Rochelle who gunned down the large beast before going to help Ellis on his feet. Nick was busy shooting a Smoker who'd tried to sneak up on them "hurry it up..!"  
Ellis was still groaning out complaints as he got up again, having obviously taking quite a hit to his back, though he waved it off quickly as they continued.  
"You okay?" the woman asked as Coach was back on his feet "I'm fine..! Used to this from practice..!" he grinned, it would take more than rough housing to take this guy down it seemed, which had the hick laugh heartedly as they moved forward, though he was now very much convinced that he had caught quite some nasty bruises on his back.  
"Down this escalator.." Coach lead them down another one, they ended up in the food court, which was infested as well. They ran into a Spitter, and quickly learned not to step in the goo. Luckily their shoes protected them, but the small platters on the skin burned horribly.

"This stuff burns, man!" The hick hissed as he tried to wipe off the corrosive material, only to have it burn his palms too.  
"the hell is this shit?!" Nick hissed, looking at his now ruined leather shoes in contempt.  
"Goddamn spitter-goo..!" Ellis wiped his hands against his overalls, before looking at them, red markings having been left on his irritated skin. Going up another set of escalators, they found themselves in a large barricaded area. Killing off the infected present within moments, before trying to discover a way forward.  
"So now what do we do?" Nick asked "there's a broken door over there, perhaps we can- Aaaargh!" Rochelle cried out, being dragged off by a Smoker.  
It was Ellis who rushed to her rescue, first shooting the tongue that was dragging her away, before emptying his ammo clip in the tall zombie's back as it attempted to flee the scene, making it explode in a cloud of seemingly green smoke, luckily it was too far away for them to breathe.  
The mechanic was soon by the woman's side, sending her a big grin as he handed her the weapon she'd dropped in her panic. "And ya were sayin'?"he sounded cheekily, Rochelle just smiled at him when she'd caught her breath "I said the door is broken over there" she pointed at it "might be able to get us further"  
Walking over there, the young man tip-toed to look further down the hall before he stepped onto the door, using it as a ramp over some knocked-over vending machines. "Clear way, guys!" he exclaimed back at the group with a big grin.  
"Might be difficult getting back, so everyone stay close.." Coack spoke softly as they crossed, once they had, Nick inspected the room next to them, letting out an excited sound "ohoho, a friggn' ninja sword, are you serious?" he picked up the weapon, examining it with his first gleeful grin presented since joining the group.

"Oh cool!" Ellis sounded as he appeared by the man's side, his eyes running curiously over the weapon.  
"Think I'll keep this" the man grinned, his sour mood seeming to have brightened at last.  
"Wish I'd brought my throwing stars." The young man laughed as he headed out of the room again. "If anybody sees some nun chucks, gimme' a holler!"  
brought a soft laughter in their group, even Nick chuckled from it! They were walking towards an open door with some stairs behind it when the white clad man suddenly stopped. Standing still like he'd seen or heard something. Whatever it was made the hairs on the back of his neck stand.  
"Ya alright back there?" The youngest called from up front, looking over his shoulder and back at the gambler, before he teased. "C'mon! I thought you were in a hurry!"  
Nicks eyes scanned their area, very much on edge "yeah.. yeah I'm fine" he spoke before walking towards the group, though he was very much on guard and seemed almost frightened.  
No one else seemed bothered though as they neared the open door. "Man, I can't remember the last time I was in this mall." Ellis started after a moment of silence. "Y'see I used to go here a lot a couple of years ago with my buddies, but then this one time Keith--"  
"Youn'in, let's focus on getting to the evac, all right?" Coach asked, Nick didn't interrupt for a change. He merely shrugged his shoulders. "Sure thing, Coach." He smiled before stepping through the open door.  
They came down a hallway as Nick suddenly grabbed Ellis arm, preventing him for going any further "wait..!" he spoke slightly hushed, stopping Rochelle and Coach in their tracks and turning to look at him "can't you all hear that??"  
The young man raised his one eyebrow a bit and narrowed his slightly shifting eyes, as he tried to listen for whatever the man spoke of, but there was no noises, the corridor was silent as the death itself. Which in this case could mean anything.  
"I heard something growling... But didn't sound like a hunter..."  
"I-- don't hear anythin'.." Ellis spoke, sending the white suited man an apologetic expression as he shrugged and continued to walk forwards.

Nick looked down towards the corridor, there were some public bathrooms, before he carefully inched forward. He'd only taken a few steps before the entire room began to shake like an earthquake.  
"What in the hell is that?" The mechanic shouted, backing off against a wall to not lose his balance. His eyes shooting around the hallway, to locate the source of the rumbling, but then the shakings just stopped. There were distant noises of something heavy moving about. But it all just died out and it got quiet again.  
Remaining in place for a few solid minutes, the hick finally looked at his fellow survivors, his eyes big and questioning. "..Holy shit! Was that some kinda' earthquake or something?"  
"no idea.." Coach muttered "lets best get going... i don't wanna be in a small cramped hallway if there's another one comin'.."  
Nodding at that, the young man hurried down the hallway with the rest of their group. Having absolutely no intentions of staying for a second round of whatever that had been.

They came to a big closed door. Nick pointed out an alarm next to it "I bet when we open this, it'll sound the alarm.." he spoke, eyeing the mechanism slightly, he was still a little on edge after the whole ordeal.  
"You ever wondered if it would stay silent, if ya didn't point it out like that?" Ellis asked with a quick grin, before kicking the door open and of course setting off a loud, ringing alarm.  
"Fucking hell Ellis?!" Nick sounded "Do you even know how to turn it off?!"  
"Figured you'd do!" He shouted over the noise, just as a loud howl sounded from the now approaching horde of zombies.  
"Fuck.." Nick cut off the head of an approaching zombie "the control center! Where the center guards go, you know where it is?" he called over the noise.  
The young male hit a zombie straight in the face with the handle of his assault rifle. "Uh, sure! Lemme' think--" He loaded the zombies body with bullets. "Upstairs! Forth floor I think!"  
"Let's get going!" Coachs voice boomed over the noise, the four of them heading for the closest escalator, Ellis took the back this time, fending off the zombies that followed behind them, making sure they wouldn't be able to slow them down.  
So far they had been lucky, fending off a Jockey and Charger before either got too close. They had to make a small detour because of some Spitter goo, but was making good progress. Nick had just about reached the room when a fresh wave of zombies came rushing through the door, followed by a jockey which he took to the head.  
"Back-humper on Nick!" The youth shouted, just as his assault rifle ran out of bullets. "Aw, shit!" He cursed, beating the now useless rifle into the head of a zombie, or he would have. The zombie had turned the poor brunette around, so he got the butt of the gun right in the face "OW?!" he shouted just as Coach sniped the Jockey "fucking hell Ellis, like the goddamn zombies weren't enough!"  
The turn of events obviously surprised the hick, who was looking back at the man with shocked eyes. "Aw man, Nick, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean t--" A load bull-like roar sounded from the opposite side of the room, as a Charger rammed through the remaining zombies and pummeled right into the wall beside them. The impact shaking the two men off their feet.  
Grabbing the hick and hauling him away, Nick used his last bullets gunning down the Charger, shouting angrily at it "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!"  
In midst all of the chaos, Rochelle had managed to get to the control panels and finally shut off the ringing alarm. Rendering the whole place completely quiet as if nothing had ever happened.  
"fuck.." Nick bend over slightly, hands on his knees as he regained his breaths. The shoulders of his suit was dark with dirt and blood splatters everywhere.  
Pulling off his cap, the hick let himself slide down against a wall. His one hand moving through his hair and rubbing his face as he breathed heavily.  
"you all right?" Coach asked, kneeling down and placing a hand on Ellis' shoulder, giving him a concerned look.  
Ellis nodded at him softly, wiping a mix of sweat and blood off his brow. "Yeah." He spoke, his eyes travelling to the man in the now very much bloodied suit, before he continued. "..I'm alright."  
The larger man caught onto it "don't let Nicholas bother you, he's just cranky"  
It earned the large man a small smile from the youngest as he put on his cap again. "Thanks Coach. Just gimme' a moment or two to catch some air.."  
"sure, found some ammo, saw ya ran out" he patted the youths back, grinning before getting up on his feet.  
"Yeah, thanks." He grinned a bit, sharing a fist bump with the older before the man walked off. Leaving Ellis sitting against the wall by himself again, his eyes once more stealing a look towards Nick, who was beginning to sport a large black eye, he was currently getting ammo when he took notice "what?" he sneered "like what you see?"

"C'mon man, I already said I was sorry!" He tried in a slightly defeated tone, his puppy-like eyes seeming truly honest and regretful of the 'attack'.  
"whatever.." Nick hissed, putting his rifle on his back "get some ammo kid, we gotta keep moving.."  
Turning his eyes down, the mechanic got up from the floor and went to collect his share of the ammunition. Reloading the rifle without a single word. They moved through yet another corridor "Evacs just right up ahead!" Rochelle spoke cheerfully as she noticed the signs, the youngest of the group didn't say anything to it, though his eyes showed that he was growing more hopeful as they neared.  
Only for their hopes to be shot down. The entire evac was infested and there was piles of corpses everywhere. Plus the sound of crying not too far away.  
"Shit." Ellis moved his arm to cover his nose and mouth, as he turned around himself to look over grizzly scene. "This ain't right.."  
Nick eyed corpses for a moment before shifting his focus to the actual problematic corpses "anybody got a pipe bomb on them..?"  
Having nothing to offer, the young man walked further into the run-down evacuation center. His eyes scanning the tables and equipment left behind.  
There was some of that bile in a jar next to a deceased CEDA worker, by now some of the zombies had taken notice, and judging by the coughing, a Smoker was also close by, thinking quickly, the hick picked up the jar and threw it towards the man in the suit. "'Ey Nick! Catch!"  
He caught it quickly, seeing it, a wide grin appeared on his face "get ready to run people.." he threw it as far as he could "Fight amongst yourselves!"  
The zombies that had been running towards the survivors, immediately stopped and turned their heads as the glass cylinder split against the floor. The spot soon being overrun by the many infected as they were strangely drawn to it.  
"get going!" Coach shouted as they ran up the escalator. "I see a safe room!" Rochelle exclaimed happily, just as a smoker appeared round the corner, it would've gotten Rochelle if not Nick had pushed her away, only to be dragged down towards the infected himself.  
This time the mechanic made no mistakes, as he quickly blew off half the head of the Smoker with a solid burst of bullets, saving the man half-way down the stairs.  
That was when a new loud growl sounded, Nick, who was still on the floor looked up in horror. Having been standing behind some plants, stood one of those women with long claws, she howled loud and angrily at Nick, laying by her feet. Reacting out of pure instinct, Ellis raised his rifle once more and unloaded his ammo clip at the anorexic looking zombie, as a result, she howled in pain, turning her attention to him, sprinting over Nick as she charged for him.  
"Oh shi-- Out of my way!!" The hick shouted, turning on his heel as he began fleeing from the obviously aggressive female zombie.  
The zombie let out a howl of pain as Nicks sword cut the back of her knee, Coach finished her off with a shotgun blow to the head shortly after "she's dead Ellis..!"  
The young man had made it surprisingly far considering the fact that he was wearing those loose, mechanic slacks. He was almost at the safe room when he turned around. "You sure?!"  
"yeah" he smiled, pulling Nick to his feet even though the other man didn't want the help.  
No longer being distracted by the bile thrown earlier, the zombies were now rushing towards the two men. However they were stopped by a blazing wall of fire, as a bottle flew past Nick and Coach and exploded at the feet of the infected, setting them all ablaze.  
"what the hell?!" Nick sounded as he and Coach ran for the safe room  
By the reinforced door stood the mechanic with a big grin on his face. Another bottle with a cloth stuffing into its neck, resting in his hand. "Now that's what I call playin' with fire!"  
"The hell did you do??" Coach asked while closing the door "is that a Molotov?" Nick asked, looking at the bottle in slight surprise and recognition.   
"Sure is, Sir!" The hick chuckled in an almost proud way, throwing the bottle into the air and catching it again. "One of my buddy's big brother showed us how to make 'em back when I was 12."  
"interesting.." the white clad man gave a small smile "Well done kid.." he spoke, patting Ellis' shoulder before walking over to open a first aid kit  
It made the grin on Ellis' face grow even bigger, as it seemed that the man had now forgiven him for slamming the rifle into his face earlier.  
Their group used this safe room to rest their sore limbs and catch their breath for a few moments before Rochelle spoke up, as she bandaged her arm "so.. Now what do we do?"   
"My guess, we get our asses to New Orleans" Coach answered.


	4. The Stock-Car

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the lovely comments and kudos! Sorry updating has been slow, I've been so busy. rest assured that the story IS completely written, just needs a lil' fixing here and there.

The survivors spend a good amount of time resting in the stock room turned safe room, taking time to tend their bruises and other injuries, getting a well deserved rest.  
Ellis had been looking over some empty shelves, but had stopped and was now completely frozen in his motion as he looked at a big poster on one of the walls with admiration in his eyes.  
"hey, Jimmy Gibbs!" Coach exclaimed as he noticed as well "who the hell is Jimmy Gibbs?" Nick asked grumpily.  
"Err, only the best stock car racer who ever lived, Nick. Guess you don't read much history." The hick spoke in a very unimpressed tone, not even looking at the older man.  
"He looks like an asshole.." Nick sneered, not very much liking the tone that Ellis had used with him.  
Spinning on his heel, the young man turned to face the gambler completely. "Now, hold on." He spoke in a voice much lower and more serious than he had ever done up until now. "You been makin' jokes about Savannah all day long and I've held my tongue. But don't belittle Jimmy Gibbs Jr. That man is the pride of Georgia and an American hero!"  
The older man looked at him slightly, standing with his side to the hick as he inspected him "..." a small chuckle left him before he walked off to look through the first aid items.  
"It ain't nothin' to to be laughing about Nick. I would take a bullet for that man!" He spoke, eyes following the man in the white suit as he went about.  
"oh yeah? Ye look that much up to that guy?" he rose a brow at the poster "Then why did you become a mechanic and not a racecar driver?" he asked, momentarily throwing the hick off as he had never mentioned his occupation, he quickly collected himself again.  
"You have any idea how much a stock car costs? Not to mention ya gotta' get sponsorships and agents and shit? No man, I would be happy if I ever got to just be part of that man's pit crew." He spoke, his voice remaining serious.  
"Mmhmm.." came the half interested reply.

"well y'all.." Coach spoke, breaking up the conversation "I guess we best check to see if there's anything out there, supplies and stuff... After that? I suggest we get our asses to New Orleans" Coach opened the safe room door, peaking outside "also last time for bathroom breaks" he added jokingly, hinting towards the restroom doors.   
Ellis send the poster one last almost longing look, before squinting his eyes as he looking closer at the dates."Aw, shit, we missed him? I could'a got my picture taken with Jimmy Gibbs's stock car! You know what, that's the last straw. These zombies have just made themselves an enemy."  
"yeah, screw anybody who died. Bet that Gibbs guy died as well..!" Nick spoke while walking down the hallway.  
"Man, I tell you, this is WAR." The hick spoke as he followed after the others. His mood seeming very much darkened by their recent discovery.  
They came to out to a lot of scaffoldings, walking over a bridge they soon found themselves in an elevator "hey Ellis, take a look" Nick spoke, nodding out the windows elevator, feeling a somewhat responsibility to change the younger's mood back around. Way down below them, on display, was a large, bright blue stock car.  
The young man had almost pushed Nick out of the way, as he stepped all the way up to the windows. Raising his cap slightly as he looked down, a wide grin slowly grew back on his face. "Oh lord.. Coach, are you seeing what I'm seein'?"  
"I sure am! You think this thing might be able to drive?" He asked excitedly.  
"Well they don't fill up these cars at car shows, so we're gonna have to find ourselves some gas." He scratched the back of his curly hair and neck lightly. "But with all the shit that's been goin' on, I think we could easily find some gas and then I'll drive that thing to New Orleans my damn self." He grinned, having gotten his overly positive spirit back.  
"well beats my idea.. Staying here and dying at the mall" Nick noted with a nonchalant shrug "hell yes, we just need to find where they kept the gas for this thing. Might in an employee's room" Coach noted, him and the hick ignoring Nick's statement.

"Man, never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd actually be drivin' Jimmy Gibbs's car.." Ellis mumbled in an excited voice as he looked down at the car with a day-dreaming look in his eyes.  
"just as long you don't cream your pants while doing it" Nick was heard mumbling "get your ass moving Nick..!" Coach reprimanded him with a look to match.  
The young man seemed to have overheard him, simply continuing to praise the driver as they headed out of the elevator and spread out to search the floor. "I don't even think Jimmy Gibbs Jr. is gonna' mind us burrowing his stock car. He's a very generous man.--If the laws of nature would allow it, I would bear that man's children."  
"oh christ..." Nick muttered, face palming slightly over that comment. He found it strangely hilarious yet disturbing at the same time. Drifting a bit away from the others, Ellis soon shouted towards them. "I'm gonna' check these rooms upstairs y'all!" He began walking up the stairs. So far, this part of the mall had seemed undisturbed by infected, which honestly was a warm welcome.  
"sure thing Ellis! We'll check the shops down here!" Rochelle had called back as the remaining survivors got a break from the Jimmy Gibbs Jr. praising as they searched the shops and stands.  
The small group had only been searching the stores for a few minutes, when a small alarm started, it came from a shop where Rochelle had been getting them supplies "awh jesus!"  
The hick came rushing out on one of the overhangs upstairs. "Hey! Wha's happenin' down there?" He shouted, leaning over the fence as he looked down at the others.  
"Some alarm went off!" Rochelle shouted "we gotta move quick before they all come rushin'..!"  
"Got it!" Ellis smiled, disappearing behind the railing again as he shouted. "'Ey! Think I found an employee's room up here. All I gotta' do is-- NOOOOOOO!" The loud cry sounded from above the other survivors.  
"Ellis!" Nick rushed for the stairs, having been the one closests to them, hurrying up towards the screaming hick. The mechanic was standing a few feet from an open door, rifle in his hands and pointing inside, though he his finger wasn't even at the trigger as he looked inside the room with a mortified look on his face.  
"what is it??" Nick asked, walking up beside the hick and looking inside the room; it was an almost surreal sight, standing only a couple of feet away from them, was a man whose face had been decorating the many posters throughout the city and mall. Of course it was debatable whether you could claim it to actually be him anymore, as his suit had been torn and his skin turned strangely discolored along with his now very dead eyes.  
"..." Nick knew instantly who it was, his eyes flickered to Ellis and back at the zombie a few times before grabbing the younger's shoulder, as he tried to have them back away.  
The hick was staggered slightly as he walked, his body seeming to have grown strangely unresponsive as his eyes was still fixed on the zombie before them. "Nick.." He spoke quietly, his gun still pointed towards the undead reanimation of his great idol.  
"Fucking hell.." the man hissed, grabbing his own pocket pistol before shooting the zombie right in the head, without any hesitation.  
For a split second the mechanic stood completely still, as if he could not truly understand what had just happened right before his eyes. Then his arms lowered along with his weapon..  
"... Let's just get the gas and get going kid" Nick spoke, walking into the room and picking up the gas tank, ignoring the bloody mess on the floor.  
Nodding softly, the young man steeped around the body on the floor, looking at it with awe before he picked up a gas tank in each hand. "..'Ey Nick? Thanks, man." he then spoke softly, looking at the suit clad man.  
The brunette looked back at Ellis, as if surprised by his gratitude "uhm... Your welcome?"  
"Now I- I would have shot him, but I just couldn't. Not me. That man's like a father to me." He mumbled when he saw the other's expression, trying to elaborate himself. "What I'm sayin' is that I think Jimmy Gibbs would have wanted it like this. No fan should have to shoot their big icon."  
"yeah.. yeah it's fine kid" Nick spoke, walking out with some gas tanks in his arms.  
"You can call me Ellis y'know." The hick noted behind him as he followed the suited man out of the room and towards the staircase.  
"yeah, I know.." he threw the gas cans down to Coach, just as the doors burst open and large hordes came running for them both.  
"Here they come!" Ellis shouted as he didn't bother to throw the gas cans, but simply ran towards the staircase and rushed down.  
Whilst they were both rushing down to get the gas into the car, Nick suddenly froze again as the floor rumbled again.

Ellis had almost spilled half a can of gasoline as the floor began shaking again. Luckily he managed not to, but it brought a surprised shout from him. "What the hell? Another earthquake?!"  
"I dunno, perhaps- HOLY SHIT, BIG FRIGGEN ZOMBIE?!" Nick pretty much screamed as the largest muscle beast of a zombie came crashing down to the floor, its arms as thick as two Coaches.  
"Do guns even work at that thing?!" The young man shouted by the car, as he grabbed another can and whirled off the lid. The large beast whacked an entire food court after them "Holy shit!" Coach shouted as they dodged the object "I dunno! But don't stop shooting!" Rochelle cried out as the remaining three of the group started firing on the approaching infected. Whilst they did so, the mechanic busied himself with filling the car's tank. Though of course the massive shaking of the entire room, made it quite difficult.  
The room shook extra heavily as the large beast fell to the floor. It had been pretty rough to the other three. Rochelle was limping slightly as she walked, Coach had a pretty sore back, Nick had a split lip but was otherwise fine. All three were pretty shaken and walked a big circle around the thing.  
As if it wasn't enough, the sound of another door breaking down sounded in the very opposite site of the room, before the noise of a hundred running feet came thundering towards them. "Aw, shit!" Ellis dropped the last gas can, deeming there no time use it before he rushed into the car. "Everybody! Into the car, now!"  
Wasting no time at all, they all hopped in there, Nick ended up on the passenger seat next to the hick, Rochelle and Coach stuffed in the back "hit it Ellis...!" he urged, wanting to get as far away from the infected as possible.  
Turning the keys, the stock car roared as the hick stepped on the speeder, making it roll down from the display and skid over the polished mall floor, before it propelled out through the big glass doors and unto the street. Taking quite a few infected with it as it flew down the stairs and finally hit the road.  
"There's no seatbelts back here..!" Rochelle shouted as her and Coach tried to stay on the small seats  
"Of course not, it's a stock car!" Ellis shouted from up front as he turned the wheel wildly, making the tires shriek underneath him as he just managed to avoid one of the many military barricades blocking their way.

 

They were finally headed out of Savannah and towards safety.


	5. The Motel

Along a road into the outskirts of Savannah, there were fewer infected to be spotted and even fewer cars, the small group of misfits had been driving for almost 2 hours, resting whilst Ellis drove the stockcar, a wide smile still on his face.  
"we'll need to find somewhere safe for the night..." Coach spoke up after a while, eyeing the setting sun in the distance "and food.." he followed up, after a soft protest from his stomach.  
"I'll be gettin' us out on the freeway." The hick spoke, making another sharp turn and even mowing down a Hunter in the process. "Pretty sure there's a couple of motels not too far out."  
"As long as it's somewhere safe and less infected..." Rochelle muttered, looking behind them at the run over Hunter in a mixture of dread and relief.  
The hick didn't respond to that, now focusing completely on his driving as they had to take several detours before finally leaving the city of Savannah behind them. From then on, the driving was much easier as there was little to no infected to worry about. "Man, how many people do ya' reckon regrets that they ever wished for this road to be completely free of cars?" Ellis asked with a joking grin, finally breaking the silence that had dominated the car for a while.  
He earned a soft chuckle from Rochelle "yeah... I wonder what happened to all these people.." "They're properly with CEDA" Coach spoke with a tired shrug, before turning towards the youth "Ellis, boy. You know the way to that Motor Inn down fifth?"

"Sure do, Coach." The mechanic smiled over his shoulder, as he tipped his cap with his thumb. "Just lean back and enjoy the ride."  
"great, if we're lucky, we'll be able to get supplies and some extra gas!" the man exclaimed happily.  
Ellis grinned, running his fingers over the leather that covered the steering wheel. "--Oh man, this is such an honor. Driving Jimmy Gibbs's car.." He laughed quietly to himself. "Really. Jimmy Gibbs Jr.'s the man! I mean, I don't know anybody like that man." He started babbling excitedly. "But there was this guy I knew, he raced dirt tracks, not stock cars but open-wheeled cars, you know, and he was racing once and a goat..."  
"Shut up Overalls.." came the tired grunt from Nick, who'd so far on this journey been quietly staring out of the passenger window, the others having assumed he'd fallen asleep.  
"Okay.." The young man fell silent again. "--but there was a goat."  
"whatever.." the man muttered.  
It was almost dark, when the stock car rolled in on the motel's parking lot, the only real light being from the neon sign, a few of the door lamps and the headlights of the car. "Well people, here we are." The mechanic sounded from the driver's seat.  
People opened the doors quietly,quickly looking around and making sure there was nothing around to jump them.  
"I suggest we team up and find supplies and then find one of the rooms to stay in for the night" Coach spoke  
The younger man nodded as he got out of the car too and put the keys in his pocket. "I suggest some of us go check out the reception."  
"Let's all go there, we'll properly need keys for the rooms" Rochelle spoke cheerfully, thinking ahead for the group already.  
Upon closer inspection, they had to break through the door which had been locked and barred before the owners had most likely fled the location. Inside the place seemed pretty standard, though most of the keys from the hangers behind the counter were missing or scattered everywhere across the floor along with papers and the likes.  
"shit.." Coach hissed "As far as I can count... These aren't even half the keys we need.." "its fine Coach, we'll make do with what we've got" Rochelle turned to Ellis "Why don't you and Nick check the upstairs?" she picked the keys for first floor, 7 in total "shout if you need it, we'll see what we can find down here"  
"Yes M'am!" The hick grinned just as energetically as he'd done most of the day. Taking the keys he walked over to the door again, his rifle resting on his shoulder. "Nick, ya coming?"  
The man in question gave the two others a dirty look before following the kid, hands in his pockets as he walked.

Once they got outside again, they headed for the stairs leading to the second floor. Getting out two of the keys, Ellis threw one of them to Nick. "Here, we'll get it all done faster if we take a room each." He smiled friendly.  
Without a word, Nick went to unlock the numbered room "..." he eyed the room from outside the door, but quickly concluded that if they had the keys for the rooms, the rooms were unoccupied and didn't have anything in it.  
Instead he moved to lean against the wall and waited for Ellis to make the same discovery.  
It took the other a little longer to discover, but in the end he came back out while scratching his hair underneath the cap. "Found anythin'?"  
"no, and we won't..." he eyed some of the other doors "Do you wanna see something cool?"  
Surprised by the sudden change of subject and question, a wry smile met Nick as the hick looked back at him. "Yea, sure!" He answered, walking closer to the man.  
The older man walked over to a door they had no key for, reaching into his jacket he pulled out a small lock pick, before getting on his knees and working the lock.  
: "Whoa, man, is that a lock pick?" Ellis asked excitedly, walking over and kneeling down beside the man to get a better look. "One of my old buddies had one of those too y'know, was gonna' break into this old, abandoned building. Unfortunately for him, the door slammed once he got inside and wouldn't you know it; the lock pick had fallen out of his pocket outside! Man, you go ahead and try to explain the sheriff how ya ended up inside a locked up building."  
"..." Nick looked at him for a moment before a snort betrayed him "okay, I wasn't expecting that..." he stood before kicking the door open softly.  
"Of course ya seem like a guy who'd know what to say in a situation like that. No offense or anythin'." Ellis grinned, before peeking inside the motel room.  
"yeah yeah.." Nick frowned slightly, the corpse of a dead woman was on the bed, having shot herself it seemed.  
The hick's expression changed quickly as well as he pulled a light grimace. "Man, that ain't right.."  
"gotta do what you gotta do.." Nick spoke, immediately going through the bags in the room, not seeming as faced by the corpse as Ellis.  
The hick quietly followed him inside, but instead walked over to the bed and poked the woman's one foot with the tip of his rifle - just to make sure.  
As he poked it, the woman suddenly leapt at him, the gun wound in her head hadn't been fatal enough for her infected body. Letting out a terrified scream, the man dropped his rifle as the dead, cold hands grabbed unto his wrist before dropping him to the floor. "GET HER OFF ME!"  
Rushing to his aid, Nick knocked the woman off him, stomping his foot into her face before she could get up. Great, now his pants leg was bloody too..  
Backing away from the scene, Ellis found himself sitting against a wall as he gasped for air. His eyes going from the woman and to Nick. "Holy shit that was scary.."  
"we just gotta be more careful... " Nick shook his bloodied boot slightly "let's find some more locked down places.."  
"S-sure." The young man stood again and went over to pick up his rifle, sending the woman one last look before following Nick outside quickly.  
They broke into another room, this had a dead guy in it, though he'd hung himself in the bathroom, just as before Nick just shrugged it off, emptying the duffle bag to use for carrying their own items.  
Ellis frowned a bit at the hanged man though. "..Do ya think we'll keep finding dead people like this?" He asked after a short while, walking over to look through the drawer in the bed table.

"well the locked doors had people staying in them so yeah, I'm pretty sure.." Nick spoke calmly.  
"And do we have to go through -all- the rooms?" The hick's voice sounded a bit anxious, clearly not feeling to keen about finding more people like this.  
"properly..." Nick went outside to a new door "watch my back"  
The young man joined him by the new door a couple of moments later, having closedthe other door behind them. Breaking in through the doors they of course found more bodies, they were all completely dead though.  
At some point they were called from the parking lot. Coach's voice sounding from beneath them. "You two found anything useful up there?"  
"hardly.." Nick replied "Some toiletries, a few energy bars, band aids... A bag of cookies" he shrugged as they rejoined them "and a shitton of bodies"  
"We didn't have much luck either." Rochelle sighed, rubbing her temple slightly as she looked back at the motel rooms. "This place has already been turned upside-down at least twice before we got here."  
"yeah.. Best make good use of what we have.. There was a pantry in one of the backrooms, but's locked and we couldn't find the key" Coach shrugged slightly.  
"Wait. Nick might be able to open it." Ellis suddenly spoke up with a grin."Got us into the locked rooms upstairs, so it's worth a shot, right?"  
"Oh yea? that'd be great!" Rochelle spoke, though the look from Coach clearly spoke that it didn't surprise him one bit.  
"Why don't ya go find us a room or something to stay in, then Nick and I will get that lock open in no time!" He grinned, patting Nick hard on on the shoulder as he spoke, causing Nick to frown slightly, he'd caught onto Coach expression "fine.." he muttered.  
Luckily the youth was completely oblivious to it as him and Nick headed into the backrooms. The shelves here were mostly empty too, except for a few extra sheets and some cleaning supplies. The pantry door was bearing markings from earlier attempts to open it, though these had obviously failed.  
"Hmm.." Nick observed the lock a few times "well this is one hell of a lock..."  
"Suppose they didn't want raccoons in there." The other's voice sounded behind him as Ellis went through the shelves. His tone making it sound like it was the most natural of all answers.  
It made Nick raise a brow slightly "hey kid, come over here.." he waved him over to him.

Stuffing a can and a cloth into the back pocket of his coveralls, the mechanic walked over to the man in the suit. "What's up, Nick? Found us a way in?"  
"maybe.." he eyed the kid up and down before taking his arm and examining his bicep "might just do.."  
Lifting his cap slightly with his free hand, the hick eyed the other. "..Now Nick, I don't mean to sound disbelievin' or anythin', but what are you doing?"  
"Checking" he let the arm go, giving it a few pats "looks like a good meat swing" he grinned "Gonna need an axe or something to hit it with"  
"Think there was one hanging behind the counter." The young man spoke, pointing his thumb over his shoulder. "Are we gonna' go 'The Shining' on that door?" He asked with a large grin before he turned to head back to the reception.  
"Hopefully..." he looked at the lock "With any luck, you could smash it"

"Well I always wanted to be an axe murderer." Ellis laughed as he left the room, only to come back minutes later with a fire axe in his hands and a bright grin on his face. "Just gotta' smash it y'say?" He asked, walking over to the lock.  
"knock yourself out fireball" Nick took a few steps back  
He adjusted the grip on the axe, before swinging it at the lock. The clash of steel making a loud metallic sound, before he swung the axe again. All in all it only took about four to five chops before Ellis backed away and simply kicked the door open. The harassed lock giving in and landing on the floor.  
"Nice job.." Nick walked into the pantry "jackpot, tons of canned food in here.."  
The hick merely shrugged, resting the axe over his shoulder as he grinned. "Aw man, it was nothing. You'd be surprised of how many times I've had to axe down a lock like that."  
"oh?" Nick grinned "so the hick is a little bad boy, huh~?"  
That simply had Ellis laugh as he shook his head. "Nah, not me, man. But y'see my buddy Keith once got toe-to-toe with this guy who was workin' down at the local slaughter house. Y'know one of them with those huge as hell freezers, right? And well, they got into this fight and--"  
"You hear that?" Nick suddenly spoke "that the sound of me not caring anymore" he started rummaging through the shelves  
"Well.. I suppose we should get these thing out to the others anyway." He spoke in a still cheerful manner as he walked in to take a box of canned food. Placing the axe on top of it, he carried it out of the room.  
"mmhmm.. Should properly get some of those backpacks we found in the different rooms. For carrying.." Nick noted, a bit more to himself then Ellis  
The mechanic soon returned to the room again, having this time brought Coach to help with carrying out the goods. "'Ey Nick, we're carry it all out and take what we need for tonight, then load the rest up in the car." Ellis informed.  
"And then we'll find a safe room to spend the night" Coach added with a smile "..." Nick seemed to think for a moment "fine whatever.."

This time Ellis carried a crate under each arm, the young man really putting those muscular arms to good use. Nick eyed them slightly, not doing much more work. When asked he just said he was supervising. Coach however soon forced him into carrying stuff as well, not taking any of that crap from the man.  
It took them quite a few turns of walking back and forth, before they had finally gathered all the boxes outside on the parking lot. Now began the exciting task of figuring out waht some of the still closed ones actually contained.  
Rochelle had went and collected backpacks for them all to carry "All right.. looks like we're finally having some luck" she spoke thankfully.  
"Oh man, speakin' about luck!" Ellis sounded excitedly, having just opened one of the crates. "Looky here." He held up a dark-tinted bottle with some brewery's name on it. Beer.  
"well I'll be damned..!" Nick actually looked excited about this "now we just need some Melbourne's and this might not be that bad"  
Looking through the other boxes unfortunately didn't turn out with any more of those "luxury" items. After having picked out the most essential things to take right now, Ellis and Rochelle began loading the car's small trunk with the remaining boxes.  
The backpacks had a few selected items, ammo, some first aid items, medicine, a few toiletries and some food. There was room for more items but it wasn't needed at the moment.  
"all right... How about we get some food in our bellies and lock down for the night?" Coach asked  
The rest of the group were quick to agree with that and followed the man to the room that he and Rochelle had selected for them to stay in overnight. After all they were barely able to see anything outside anymore.  
Once inside the room, they made sure to barricade the door and block the window, only one small lamb was on as the night rolled in.  
"well you guys. It's properly for the best we eat the food that last the shortest.." Coach spoke as he looked at their small inventory.  
Having sat down on the bed, Ellis took off his cap and placed it beside him as he moved a hand through his brown curls and nodded at the large man's point.  
He didn't even notice Nicks momentary stare as he did. "well then... We got them cookies ya'll found, plus tome toast... And I think we can afford opening one of the canned fruits"  
"I hear ya, Coach." The young man smiled. "..I don't suppose any of you guys have a can-opener on you?" Rochelle sounded, having picked up a can with canned pineapple.  
"Just use a knife.." Nick muttered, sitting against the wall next to the barricaded door  
Turning to him, the woman raised an eyebrow. "And I suppose you would be carrying a thing like that around, hm Nick?" "I'll take it, Ro." Ellis interrupted, reaching out to accept the can from Rochelle who looked at him surprised.  
Nick frowned at her heavily before looking away, distancing himself from the rest again.  
Getting a screwdriver from his one pocket, the mechanic hammered it into the can's lid, making a small hole in it before offering it to the others. "Anyone want the water?"  
Nobody was interested in that however "Gotta say, ya did good kid" Coach spoke, saluting Ellis with some toast like it had been a drink.  
"Just did what I could, Coach." He smiled, drinking the water from the can himself. "Only wish I could have got us to that evac center in time." He put down the can and used the screwdriver to open it the rest of the way, before sending the open can round.

"Settle down boy, ain't your fault.."  
"I know Coach, I know." Ellis smiled again, as he bit down unto one of the pineapple slices. The juices from the fruit, running down from the corners of his mouth and down his chin, making him curse a bit in surprise before wiping it off.  
The mood between the three of the group were very much cheerful, Nick didn't participate in their conversation though, he kept to himself, only eating two slices of toast and half a cookie.  
"'Ey Nick, ya feeling good man?" Ellis finally asked after a long while, having leaned back on the bed and laid slightly on his side to better look at the other.  
"I'm fine" the man spoke, head turned to the window, he was mostly listening for any movements outside "We should keep lookout.." "That is actually a pretty good idea.." Coach agreed quietly  
"Let's take shifts then." Rochelle spoke as she stretched her arms a bit. "Anyone volunteer for the first hours?"  
"I'll do it" Nick spoke up right away, which caught the woman and Coach slightly off guard, as they hadn't expected that offer so freely from the man.  
Picking up his cap again, the young man put it back on his head. "Guess it's a goodnight then." He smiled, looking around at the others as he leaned his back against the headboard of the bed.  
Soon after everyone had found a space to sleep in for the night, Rochelle slept next to Ellis on the bed, while Coach slept in the large chair in the corner.  
Nick, while on his watch, observed these strangers slightly. So this is what it had come to? Relying on these morons to survive? He sighed slightly, it didn't really matter he supposed, he'd stick around for now. he turned his eyes back on the group, observing them again.  
The hick had pulled down his hat to cover his eyes as he slept with folded arms, still leaned against the headboard. Beside him, Rochelle was laying on her side with her back to him while Coach was snoring lightly in the chair.  
Nick sighed heavily, running a hand through his hair. To think his worst problem this morning had been a hangover. Well... For the most parts.  
He touched his bandaged chest slightly, frowning at the memory.  
He still hadn't told anyone about those bandages, even though the mechanic had noticed them and even questioned their origin, when Nick was bandaging the young man's arm earlier.  
He properly wasn't going to either, it didn't concern these morons. He eyed them again, glaring slightly. It really annoyed him that he depended on them, but for now he'd stick to them, but the moment he could get out of this hellhole he would leave. He didn't care what happened to any of them..  
In all honesty none of them seemed to care much for him either, well except from the young mechanic of course, but judging by his naive and artless attitude so far, it was most likely just the way he was towards anyone.  
Naive fool... Nick shook his head slightly, he already had a pretty good idea of what he'd been labeled by the other two, and he didn't care. The hick still annoyed him, but so far he'd been useful, if not good eye-candy.  
If only he didn't break into those tiring talks. Was he really that much without sense of situation that he thought anyone would care about his far-fetched stories in the middle of the zombie apocalypse? It would seem so..  
Nick sighed once again, feeling a headache approaching. Instead of looking at the morons, he turned to watch the door, having to lean his back against the side of the bed instead of the wall, gun in hand

 

Time passed without anything worth mentioning, that was until a low, Georgian accented voice suddenly sounded right next to the gambler's ear. "Nick.. You awake?"  
He flinched from the unexpected sound, wiping his head around his head to look at the other "yeah?"  
The hick was smiling back at him in the dark. The scent of pineapple still lingered around him. "Sorry man, didn't mean to scare ya..." he spoke tiredly.  
"... sure, why are you awake?" he asked, trying to ignore the scent and alluring glow on the other. 'Geez Nick, calm down, it's been 24 hours...' he thought to himself.  
"Guess I cudn't sleep with all that wicked shit that's been goin' on today." He shrugged, folding his arms underneath his chin as he looked out of the window.  
"mmhmm.." the man sounded, looking back towards the barricaded door.  
A low chuckle escaped the hick as he turned his eyes to Nick again. "Too bad Coach wouldn't let us grab a beer, huh? Best lullaby in the world if ya ask me."  
"Agreed.." Nick answered softly "though I'd preferred some Jägermeister about now.."  
"Oh, wait. That reminds me..!" The younger lifted himself up on his elbows, his one hand moving down to rummage through one of his many pockets. "Here." A half-full packet of cigarettes was dropped into the man's lap.  
"What the- how??" Nick looked at the younger again, confused.  
"Found 'em in that dead guy's bed table. Guess he didn't feel like smoking before goin' to meet God." He grinned in the dark, the faint light from outside reflecting in his eyes and smile.  
Reaching into his jacket, nick found his small flick lighter. Lightning the cigarette in his mouth he inhaled deeply before letting out a relaxed sigh, blowing the smoke out his nostrils. The hick watched him as he sat up himself, his legs moving over the edge beside Nick as he rolled his one shoulder, while turning to look at the door.  
"There is something out there... Heard some growling not too far away, properly some more people who stayed at the motel.." Nick spoke in a soft murmur, the cig between his lips.  
Frowning a bit, Ellis lowered his head. Almost as if it would help covering him from anything out there. "Do ya think they know we're in here?"  
"no idea.. it's dark in here.. So as long we don't make any loud noises or anything, we should be fine.." he stretched slightly, he was so tired but he didn't want to sleep.  
Suddenly, a hand appeared on his shoulder. "'Ey man, you can go to sleep if ya wanna'." That pineapple scent was waving at him again. "I'll take the next shift."  
"... Nah, I'm awake anyway.." Nick shrugged, trying to ignore the smell.  
"Suit yourself." Ellis responded, his hand retrieving again. "Gonna' catch myself a few more dreams. Gimme' a holler if ya change your mind." With that he laid down on the bed again, turning his back to the other.  
"mmhm.." he eyed the other slightly before returning his eyes to the door. He never did wake up the hick, nor anybody ells. By morning he had bags under his eyes and had apparently gone through the entire pack of smokes. Much to the complaint from Rochelle who taught the room stank of smoke.  
Of course this only meant that there was no arguing against eating their breakfast in the car while they drove on. All of them more or less eager to get out of the small motel room.  
Coach was on the passenger seat this time, allowing for more room in the back. Nick was sort of dozing off, but still fought the sleepiness during the ride.

Ellis had them driving along the highway again, but eventually had to drive off it and unto the smaller roads as the freeway was blocked by too many cars.  
They found a small gas station by the road. On the road and roof of the building, large white letters spelling SOS had been painted.  
"Well.. That's promising.." Nick muttered tiredly, eyes roaming over the area.  
"But it's also our best chance at getting some gas for the next 100 miles." The mechanic spoke from up front as he had the stock car pull in by the gas station.  
"Gotta agree.. Just stay on your guard people" Coach spoke as they all exited the car.  
The place seemed abandoned as they hick looked around, one hand moving up to wipe some sweat off his brow. "I reckon we should split up and grab what we can before any zombies figure out that we're here."  
"There's a car over here" Rochelle spoke "we might get some gas of it..!"  
Walking over to her, the mechanic opened the lid to the gas tank before using his flashlight to get a better look. "Well looks like we got about half-a tank in this one." He spoke up, turning off the flashlight again.  
"better than nothing" Rochelle smiled sweetly. "what are we gonna do with the building?" Nick asked, eyeing the door.  
Ellis shrugged, walking over to chop off a hose that had been used for people to wash their cars. "You just do whatever guys. I'm gonna' make sure this baby's fed." He smiled, gathering the hose on his shoulder as he patted the helmet of the light-blue stock car.  
Coach stayed by Ellis, keeping a watch so the hick could work in peace. Rochelle went with Nick to investigate inside the building  
The small store wasn't anything special. Shelves covered mostly every wall and a couple of low shelves in the middle separated the room into three isles. At the very end of the room was the counter, which also sported a coffee brewer along with a long-since ransacked cash register.  
Didn't stop Nick from checking it out anyway, finding a backroom he had Rochelle go inform Coach and Ellis that they'd found weapons out in the back.  
The hick was in the middle of successfully transferring the gasoline from one car to the other. Having placed the tube into the one tank and then sucked the other end until a natural flow was created. Of course it had him spitting a bit, as he placed the other part of the hose in the stock car's tank. Sure, he was a mechanic, but the taste of gas was never sweet and not to mention fairly toxic.  
Nick appeared holding some sort of notice in his hand from CEDA, he snorted at it and when Coach took it and read it he did as well "Report unusual behavior, barricade your homes, avoid all contact with infected individuals... Wait for official instructions?" he chuckled "wait my ass.."  
Standing up straight, Ellis fixed the brim of his cap with his one hand as he smirked confidently. "Kill all sons-a-bitches; that's my 'ficial instructions." He patted the tank of the car. "This girl will be ready to drive in a couple of minutes. Y'all found some nice weapons in that room?"  
"Found one mean looking shotgun..." Nick nodded towards the building, he wasn't going to get it for himself though.  
Raising an eyebrow in interest, the young man headed over to the building and walked inside. A moment passed before loud laughing sounded from within.  
"you okay sweetie?" Rochelle asked him, looking inside as the hick came walking back.  
The grin on Ellis's face was one of amazement and excitement as he turned to face her, holding a semi-automatic shotgun in his hands. "This shotgun feels right." He grinned, weighing it in his hands. "Real right."  
His reaction caused a small grin to appear on Nicks face, but soon disappeared again, turning dead serious at something equally dead, wandering on the other side of the road.  
Noticing that, the hick walked out through the door again, his eyes looking in the same direction as Nick. "That a zombie?" He asked, pulling his cap a bit to shadow for the sun.  
"looks like.. Not one of the really mutated ones though.." Nick muttered as their group watched the walking dead woman stumble about.  
"I'm glad we haven't seen any children yet.." Rochelle spoke with a sad undertone  
Ellis nodded and walked over to check the hose in the car. "Car's ready, if we're all done here." He informed in a modest tone as he pulled the tube out of the tank and closed the lid.  
"yeah, let get goin-" Coach was interrupted by a gunshot, Nick having shot the dead woman's head off with his magnum.  
The three others starred at him with a mix of shock and surprise. Who would have thought that of all of them, Nick was the one to make what appeared to be a mercy killing. Turning his eyes back to the car, Ellis opened the door and got in, wanting to get away from this scene.  
Nick didn't say anything, nor did he look at the others reactions as he just got in the car, he merely crossed his arms and seemed to be sulking.

 

Silence roamed in the stock car for quite a while after that. No one really knowing whether to comment on the event or not. Ellis drove them down another lone, abandoned road occasionally eyeing the signs that they passed.  
They passed a trailer park at some point, but the place seemed to roam with infected.

 

Rochelle sighed "girl you should've stayed at home.."  
"Well look on the bright side, Ro. We're still alive." Ellis tried, even smiling as he spoke. "And with a little luck we'll be hitting Rayford by some time tomorrow. It's a real' beautiful city y'know, might cheer ya up."  
"I hope so" she smiled slightly "maybe we'll be able to find some help there" Coach spoke optimistically.  
"Yea, exactly! I mean, we can't be the only survivors out here, right?" The young man agreed, still smiling as he drove them off to hit the freeway again.  
fo sho" Coach grinned, the mood seeming to lighten up in the car once again.  
"So Ro, mind me askin' why you were in Savannah when all of this broke out?" The hick asked, sending her a smile over his shoulder. They had a long, boring drive ahead of them, so they he figured they might as well pass the time with getting to know each other.  
"well.." she smiled "I work for News 5, and they wanted a reporter where the infection had hit - saw my own cameraman turn, never expected it all to be so bad.." she shook her head "should have listened to my colleagues"  
"'Ey, if we don't listen to ourselves sometimes we ain't never goin' anywhere, right?" The youngest smiled, seeming intent on keeping a positive view on the situation.  
She chuckled slightly "I suppose so. My boss better remember me risking my life getting him those footages"  
Ellis laughed at that as he moved his one arm to rest it in the open window. "Bet you'll be gettin' your own show and everythin'."  
The woman laughed along with him, even Coach chuckled "maybe, who knows!"  
"I know I'd be watchin' it!" He grinned. "Could have it runnin' on the TV in the garage while fixing the cars."  
"thanks, I guess" she smiled at him brightly into he rearview mirror. Nick rolled his eyes and sighed irritated.  
"What about you Nick?" The hick's voice sounded, as his eyes in the mirror travelled from Rochelle to the man in the suit. "You don't seem like the folks we get most of around in Savannah."  
"Sheer misfortune" the man sneered  
"Ya missed a plane or something?" Ellis continued, seeming completely unaffected by the man's negative attitude. "I heard they cancelled a lotta' flights in the radio."  
"No. I came here by car" Nick spoke harshly again, Coach giving him a reprimanding look.  
"That's cool man, I can appreciate that. I prefer to travel cross-country in cars too." He grinned, pausing for a moment before turning halfway in his seat with an excited look on his face. "'Ey, I ever tell you about the time me and Keith went to Hollywood? It was the most awesomest place in the world! We saw--"  
"Been there. Seen it." Nick cut him off in a more angry tone. His lack of sleep not helping on his already pissy attitude.  
The mechanic's eyes turned hurt for a short second, but then he merely smiled and shrugged it off. "Maybe we should start looking for a place to hold up." Coach noted, looking back at Nick from the corner of his eye. "Sounds like someone needs their nap."  
"not in a million years" Nick hissed, looking back out the window. Rochelle leaned slightly away from him, a sour mood spreading again.  
They did however pull into another abandoned motel a couple of hours later. This one was way smaller than the other, containing only a single, two-stories building with the different floors connected by a frail looking staircase.  
"This looks creepy.." Rochelle muttered as she stepped out the car, eyeing place.  
It was indeed more lousy than the last one they had stayed at. Some of the letters in the neon sign was smashed too and it appeared to be out of power. "I don't know, Ro. I think it looks kinda' nice." Ellis spoke as he stepped out too with the shotgun in his hands.  
"what's that sound?" Coach asked, a deep haunting noise was coming from somewhere in the building. Like an infected cow or something  
"Sounds like one of 'em one-armed dudes." The hick muttered as he walked around the car and walked towards the room with careful steps.  
Everybody was right behind him on this, ready to take on the beast.  
Not that they even managed to reach the door, before a loud roar sounded and the huge zombie came crashing through it, leaving bits of wood and splinters flying through the air. Ellis was the first to get hit, as the Charger rammed it's shoulder into his chest and literally used him as a battering ram to knock over the others as it pummeled through the group.


	6. The Hick

A loud crash sounded at the abandoned motel, along with a pained scream as the surprise Charger smashed into the parked stock car. Still carrying the hick, the zombie now began beating him repeatedly into the ground, his screams and shouts quickly growing quiet as the air was knocked out of his lungs.  
"Shoot it! Shoot it!" Rochelle shouted, the three firing bullets at the enormous beast until it finally slumped down to the side and let go of the youngster.  
Strained gasps and coughs escaped him, Ellis quickly moving his hand to the side of his chest as a pained grimace spread on his face. "Aw, hell no.. Hell no.." He hissed under his breath, as he remained on the ground.  
"C'mon, on your feet.." Nick was by his side within moments, pulling him up urgently, but it only served to have the young man hiss even louder as he got to his feet. His free hand moving to support himself as he leaned against the car roof. The other hand clenching to the side of his rib cage.  
Rochelle and Coach was quickly by his side "are you okay? Are you bleeding?" they asked "We have to check his ribs.." Nick spoke right away, eyes travelling to the hicks side, that he was clutching so hard to.  
"We gotta' clear the rooms first." Coach sounded. "You stay here and keep an eye on him. It'll only be a minute." He turned to check the motel rooms, Rochelle send Ellis a worried look before following him, they'd be done faster with both of them securing the place.  
Sighing slightly, Nick hooked Ellis one arm over his shoulder as he started walking them towards the building.

The young man's hand came to grab hold of Nick's jacket as he was guided along, his fingers clenching the once white fabric. "..Son of a bitch." He cursed through gritted teeth. "That thing knocked the piss outta' me.."  
"mmhm.." the man responded "how's the search?" he then called for Coach.  
"First floor is clear!" Rochelle's voice sounded as she appeared on one of the walkways above them. "All clear too." Coach spoke as he stepped out of a room, holding the door open and waving Nick and Ellis towards it.  
Hurrying inside as fast as they could, nick helped the younger lay down on a bed. Outside a low rumble sounded as the first few drops of rain began falling, washing away the violence that had taken place.  
It brought more pained gasps from the youth as he had to lay down once more. His chest was moving rapidly, as if he couldn't manage to breath properly. "Ah shit, this hurts.." His one arm moved to cover over his eyes.  
"Put down your arms" Nick said sternly, opening their medical supplies to look for medications.  
Ellis did as he was told, pinching his eyes together and gritting his teeth again as he tried to breath more calmly, though he didn't really succeed.  
"I'm gonna pull up your shirt" Nick spoke as he started tugging up the fabric, which caused a pained noise to sound from the mechanic as his hands clenched the sheets tightly. His chest was still moving inconsistently from his ragged breathing, though it was now more clear why he was having trouble. The lower, right side of his rib cage was heavily bruised, even carrying mark of where the Charger's hand had been holding on to him.  
Rochelle made a soft gasp as saw it, Coach eyed the damage while barricading the door.  
"..." Nick merely frowned at it "tell me if it hurts.." he began trailing his fingers around the bruise, poking at the ribs  
"Uh-huh.." the hick nodded a bit, eyes still closed as he tried to relax as much as possible. He didn't react much at first, of course he squirmed from soreness, but it was to be expected. However when the man reached his two lower ribs, the hick winced in agony as he instinctively attempted to move away from the touch.  
"shit.." Nick hissed "I'm not sure if they're broken, but the Charger has busted these two ribs" he spoke  
The worried expression on Rochelle's face grew deeper. "But we can try and fix it, right?" She spoke, sitting down next to Ellis and hushing him softly as he made a pained whimper.  
"nothing much to be done.." Nick sat on the bed "bandage it in, keep them in place, and he should stay in bed..." he ran a hand through his hair "technically, he should be in bed for at least 2 weeks but we don't have that kind of luxury"  
The woman turned her eyes back to the hurt mechanic, smiling at him as she spoke. "Ellis, sweetie? You heard the man, we have to get you patched up to make sure you'll be alright." He opened his eyes lightly, looking back at her. "Y'all just do what you have to, Ro.." He sounded, offering her a weak, pained smile.

It was Nick who bandaged him up, he seemed to know what he was doing and made sure that even though the bandages had to sit tight, it wouldn't be uncomfortable tight  
Once done, the young man was handed a couple of painkillers to take the top of the pain, before he was told to lie down and stay calm.  
While he got some rest, Nick and Coach had went to investigate the Motels reception, trying to find something they could cook with. Rochelle stayed with Ellis in the room, trying to tidy it up a bit and get it ready for them to spend the night. "Did you guys find anything?" She asked when the two men came back.  
"We found this" Coach was holding a pot in his hands "that's about it... No electricity - no working stove"  
"Not much use for that thing, then." She sighed, looking at the pot in Coach's hands. Ellis who had been resting while the other's searched the room, was looking up from the bed as he slowly inched his elbows up to support himself.  
"whoa now boy, don't move around too much" Coach spoke, placing their items down and re-barricading the door  
"But I might have an idea." The hick spoke, managing to sit up slightly against the pillows that has been placed behind him, though he pulled a pained grimace as he did.  
"All right, what is it?" the large man asked, smiling slightly.

"We could use a car battery to maybe power up something." He spoke with strained voice. "My buddy Keith and I have done it a thousand times whenever he's forgot to pay his rent."  
"That might just work" Nick piped up from the bathroom.  
"All right.. I'll go get a battery from one of the abandoned cars. Anything specific?" Coach spoke, picking up a gun  
The young man shrugged a bit. "Bigger car, bigger battery. So if ya manage to find a pick-up truck or anything, that would be great." He managed a small grin.  
Giving a nod the man headed out into the rain. Rochelle was by the door, ready to rush for his aid if he needed it. Inside from the bathroom Nick hissed slightly and muttered small colorful curses.  
It had the youngster look in the direction of the bathroom after a while. "Yo Nick, you in trouble out there?" The heavily accented voice sounded.  
"I'm fine" came the slight hiss, Rochelle was frowning towards the room as well, her eyes went to the still open med kit, it was lacking some items and band aids "are you sure Nick?" "yes..!"  
"Aw man, this reminds me of the one time when my buddy Keith was stuck in the bathroom for like a week." The mechanic suddenly began. "It wasn't that the door was locked or anything, but we'd been hikin' in the woods and Keith had found these berries and--"  
"I don't think I wanna know.." Rochelle made a grimace "Ah, tits!" Nick hissed from the room.  
"Try and breath slowly while ya relax!" Ellis shouted from the bed, his eyes still looking towards the room that Nick was inside.

"I'm not taking a fucking dump!" the man sneered angrily

"Well the advice still applies." The youngster muttered, shrugging his shoulders lightly. "Well either you suck it up, or you come in here and let one of us help you." Rochelle spoke up, growing tired by the older mans attitude..  
They didn't get any further response from the brunette. When he finally re-emerged, he had taken his jacket off, his blue shirts' sleeves had been rolled up and he had band aids along his arms.  
Ellis lifted his cap slightly as he eyed the new patches on the man's arm. "Whoa Nick, what happened to ya arms, man?" He asked with a surprised tone.  
"A few splinters... nothing serious" he spoke as he sat down in a chair, folding his coat neatly and avoiding the hicks eyes.  
The hick watched him for a moment, but quickly had to rest against the pillows again and clench to his chest as he felt a sharp sting of pain. "Oh man, I'm hurtin'.."  
Coach soon reappeared, soaked completely but with a large car battery and some cables "hey y'all.."  
He was send a friendly nod from Ellis, before he closed his eyes and tried to focus on breathing in a way that wouldn't hurt him too much.  
Coach sat down next to him "how about you instruct me how to do this?" he spoke with a friendly grin.  
Moving carefully, Ellis managed to sit up slightly. "Black cable goes to the negative terminal and red goes to the positive one." He explained with weak, slightly breathless voice as he pointed out his instructions. "And then you just gotta' connect it to an electric cooking plate or something."  
"damn-" "I'll get it" Nick spoke, going for the door

Nobody really tried to stop him, but the mechanic did remind him to be careful even though they had cleared the place. Once Nick had left, Coach looked up at them "so, what you guys think of Nick...?"  
"He seems like a cool guy." The young man spoke immediately as he carefully took off his cap and placed it beside himself on the bed.  
"I dunno Ellis.." Rochelle sighed "he seems like he can handle weapons and knows a lot about treating wounds but... He's not very nice" "yeah... You heard him too, he's not 'legally allowed to own a gun'. Now the only reason for that, is that he's a convicted man" Coach continued, sharing concerned look with Rochelle.  
"Oh c'mon y'all. He's not that bad, I'm sure he don't mean anything of what he says." The hick moved a hand through his hair. "Just because he's been to jail it doesn't mean he's a bad guy. I mean, he got us all this food, right?" Well technically it had been Ellis doing the hard work, but that didn't stop him from giving the man the credit.  
"Perhaps... But I don't trust him.." Coach spoke, Rochelle sighed slightly, sitting in the chair where Nick had been "..." She eyed the still folded jacket

The young man seemed determined that his perception of the man was the right one. "Well I ain't gonna' judge no one by their past. That's just not right." He stated boldly.  
"Guess we'll see..." Coach spoke "but he better get his act together "should we..?"Rochelle piped up, nodding towards the jacket  
Ellis send her a surprised look, which quickly changed into a slightly disappointed one. "Aw man, Ro. Would you really look into a man's jacket while he wasn't around? I thought ya were better than that.." He tried, looking at her with those puppy-like eyes of his.  
She did get a guilty look from it, sighing slightly "I just wanna be sure he's not gonna turn on us" she defended.  
"Ro, he ain't gonna' do that. He's a good guy." The hick smiled warmly at her as he let himself sink deeper against the pillows.  
"I'm not so sure of that-" Coach spoke just as Nick came back inside the room, holding parts of a microwave, completely ending the man from finishing his sentence.  
"Hey Nick." The young man greeted with a big smile as he entered, seeming completely unaffected by the discussion he'd just had with the others.  
The others stayed silent however, unsure whether if the man had heard them or not. If he had, he didn't say anything, he merely set to finishing their makeshift cooker.  
As he did that, the youngster had closed his eyes and tilted his head a bit to the side. The pills seemed to have really kicked in now and he was finally able to relax more.  
They soon had the cooker working, Coach using the pot to try and cook them some tomato soup.  
Rochelle tried to help him out, though quickly had to admit that she didn't usually do a lot of cooking herself. Ellis in the meantime had drifted off into sleep and was napping quietly on the bed.  
Nick eyed him for a moment and gave a soft smile, sitting away in a corner, waiting for them to finish the food. The two others did chit-chat a bit, though it wasn't much. The hick was still the one to start most conversations in the group and the one to keep them going, which meant that so far the room was relatively silent.  
After a while Rochelle shook Ellis shoulder softly "sweetie? Its dinner time" she spoke, smiling at the drowsy hick.  
Turning his head, he looked at his with tired eyes before rubbing them with his hands and sending her a smile. "Yeah, thanks Ro."  
They had to serve the soup in Styrofoam cups, Rochelle handed Ellis his own, there was small noodles in the soup as well. She also gave one to Nick, who seemed genuinely surprised by it "... Thanks.." he muttered  
"This ain't so bad." Ellis spoke up with a grin as he sipped from the warm soup. "Actually reminds me of the last time I was campin' with my buddies up in the woods. Except the soup wasn't really warm and it had more bugs in it." He chuckled.  
Nick grimaced at that, sipping his own soup in silence otherwise. Rochelle chuckled, sitting on the bed next to Ellis "some trip that must've been.."  
"You should have see it. Our campsite wasn't very far off the road y'see and my buddy Keith was checking out the area when he found what looked like, In Keith's estimation, a dead bear, so Keith gets over there to find a stick to poke at it, right? Well, it turns out it's just some lady's fur coat that musta fallen out her car, so, hey, free coat, right?" He sipped some more soup before continuing.  
"Now, owls won't normally attack a man, but in this case, they were hungry, and that made them reckless, man. Keith reckons that they musta' been there for hours watchin' what they thought was a bear carcass, 'cause as soon as he picked it up, them owls had claws in him inch deep. Well, Keith figures his best bet is to jump in a lake, 'cause owls can't swim. Well, them owls could. He fought them for like 20 minutes while treading water."

He looked thoughtful as he shook his head. "Man, sometimes nature's just tryin' to teach us, if we'd only listen."  
Rochelle chuckled "that Keith sound like some guy" she smiled "yeah, where he at?" Coach added  
"I reckon he's somewhere safe about now." Ellis spoke, drinking some more soup. "He was quick to get with those whirlybirds, so who knows? Might run into him in Orleans." He grinned hopefully.  
Nick was about to say something, but shut himself up, ignoring the stupid name, for now  
The woman nodded slightly "Sounds smart.."  
Relaxing against the pillows, the youth continued to grin as he drank the rest of his soup. It was certainly great to get something to eat.

 

"All right people, it's getting late, we need to settle down for the night - Who's on watch?" "I am" Nick spoke, already eyeing the door, Coach rose a brow at him, but didn't argue with the man, if he wanted to stay up, then he'd let him. And so it was decided, once the Styrofoam cups had been thrown into the trashbin everyone went about to get some sleep. The mechanic of course remained unmoving as he wasn't allowed to do anything but rest on the bed.  
Nick sat by the door, his gun on his arms as he rested against the wall, he was so tired that he was fighting to stay awake.  
"Not sleepy?" The hick asked quietly after a while, having actually seemed to be asleep up until now. Of course the room was almost completely pitch black by now, so it was hard to tell if he'd had just sat there in silence.  
It did make Nick jump slightly out of surprise "... No"  
There was a small shrug from the other. "Me neither. Think the pills stopped workin'." He chuckled slightly before holding around his bandages. "..Ouch."  
"try to stay still.." Nick muttered slightly  
"Ain't as easy as it sounds." Ellis spoke, still seeming at rather high spirits. "Hey Nick, can I ask ya something?"  
"..." the man remained silent for a while, just looking at the hick in the darkness "sure, go ahead.."  
"Remember back at the mall when you asked me why I hadn't become a stock car racer? Well I was wonderin' how you knew I was a mechanic in the first place?" He asked curiously.  
"the logo on your hat..." Nick spoke "My car's in your workshop"  
"Really?" He asked in surprise. "Huh, I don't remember seein' ya around. Musta' been Paul who took in your car." He scratched his hair lightly. "I mean, I would have definitely remembered you if ya'd talked to me."  
"Properly, didn't look like you anyway..." Nick looked towards the door "A Bentley? Bentley Continental GT? With white leather seats?" he looked back at the kid  
A grin seemed to appear on the hick's face. "Oh yea, I remember that one! Really fancy lookin' car, gotta' admit that." He stretched his arms a bit. "Too bad it's rear axle was completely busted up. Ya drove it into a ditch or something?"  
"you could say that.." Nick shrugged slightly "too bad I might never drive her again"  
"'Ey now, it's not like a broken axle is a death sentence. You can change those things y'know. Hell I could probably do it for ya." He spoke with certain optimism.  
"thanks, but I doubt I'll make it back to it anyway" he shrugged again, looking at the barricaded door tiredly.

There was a short pause before the hick spoke again, his tone still friendly as ever. "I could watch the door for ya, if you wanna' catch a little sleep?" He offered.  
"No thanks. You should rest, the more you rest, the quicker we can move on" he spoke  
The young man shrugged. "I'm resting just fine here. I ain't the one goin' on my 48th hour without sleep." He smiled, moving a bit on the bed and inching to the one side. "Could even make some room for you up here."  
"..." Nick eyed Rochelle sleeping next to Ellis "no thanks.."  
Turning his head, he looking at the woman beside him before grinning teasingly back at Nick. "What, you afraid of sleepin' next to Ro, Nick?"

"no.." he rested against the wall, seeming to have gone quiet, but he spoke up again after a minute or so "hey Ellis?"  
"Yeah Nick?" The hick's voice sounded back in the dark, as he looked towards the man that nobody seemed to trust, but himself.  
"..." Nick bit his lip slightly "thanks for standing up for me I guess... Don't think anyone's ever done that before"

There was a moment of confused silence, but eventually a friendly grin showed in the dark. "Don't mention it, Nick. That's what friends are for." He shrugged like it wasn't a big deal, which it probably wasn't to him. "I don't think you should take it too badly though. Think they're just a little scared about the whole gun-thing."  
"we're not friends..." Nick spoke, running a hand through his hair "we just met.."  
"Now, you don't need to have known someone for a long time to become friends with 'em. 'Least I don't." He grinned in the same friendly, unchanged tone.  
"I do" Nick replied in a short stern manner, pulling his jacket around his shoulders)  
"Well if it's any good to you, I'd still stand up for ya, Nick. I think you're a cool guy." The hick spoke, moving his shoulders in a soft shrug.  
"..." Nick didn't answer him, though he was touched by it, he couldn't remember the last time anyone had been this kind to him. But then again, the kid really was naive, it humored him but also annoyed him.


End file.
